Vox Corporis
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: Following the events of the Goblet of Fire, Harry spends the summer with the Grangers, his relationship with Hermione deepens, and he and Hermione become animagi.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Vox Corporis  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Email: miss(underscore)annthropic (at) yahoo (dot) com  
Rating: M  
Spoilers: Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Summary: Following the events of the Goblet of Fire, Harry spends the summer with the Grangers, his relationship with Hermione deepens, and he and Hermione become animagi.

Author's Note: I have read all of the Harry Potter books (up through "Half-Blood Prince", anyway), and I _did_ enjoy them, but I was not lured over to the Harry Potter fandom until the Goblet of Fire movie. I loved that movie. On the whole, I think the movies were better than the books in the Harry Potter 'verse. That may put me in the minority, but be that as it may, that piece of information is necessary before jumping into "Vox Corporis". Because I liked the movies better, I take my cannon from them as opposed to the books. I borrowed from the books when the movies left me no recourse (the most obvious example that comes to mind is that Ron has Pig in this fic; the movie never showed Ron replacing his familiar after Scabbers turned Wormtail but the book did), but for the most part if you didn't see it in the movies I don't use it as a foundation for my fic. If that's going to bug you to no end, turn back now. If not, read on.

Disclaimer: None of this is mine. I'm just a fan writing out of affinity for the source and I get nothing out of this other than enjoyment. And neither am I Sara Teasdale, from whose poem the title "Vox Corporis" hails.

URL: wickmoo (dot) com

Forum: If you'd care to venture over to the WIP section of my homepage, you can find a link to my LJ which I have set up as a forum for discussion on "Vox Corporis". It gives me a chance to answer any questions you might have about the story and also to chat on a more personal level with the readers. WIPs page: wickmoo (dot) com (slash) wips (slash) wips (dot) html

* * *

"Vox Corporis"  
Sara Teasdale

_The beast to the beast is calling,  
__And the mind bends down to wait:  
__Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,  
__The man calls to his mate._

_The beast to the beast is calling,  
__They rush through the twilight sweet-  
__But the mind is a wary hunter;  
__He will not let them meet._

* * *

Things were in a state of near-total chaos in Mad-Eye Moody's office. Apparently, discovering an escaped prisoner of Azkaban and loyal servant to Lord Voldemort (who had gone through a recent rebirth) in their midst, assisting the real Moody (who'd been trapped in a chest for months without reprieve), handling the death of a Hogwarts student, juggling the visiting schools and officials for the Triwizard Tournament, and intercepting and placating a suddenly nosy Ministry of Magic was enough for anyone to get lost in the shuffle. Even a boy like Harry Potter.

After Crouch Junior had been unmasked for the impostor he was, Dumbledore had herded Harry to the anteroom of the office when the Minister of Magic had caught up to Hogwarts's head wizard and demanded to know why a young boy's body was being transported home for burial.

Dumbledore had gently led Harry aside and, with a pat on the arm, left him there to tend to the unpleasantries of a student death mostly out of earshot of the traumatized boy.

'Tending to a few details' had become entanglement in a thousand and one knots, and everyone was so busy and confused that no one noticed eerily quiet Harry on the outskirts.

Harry watched the heads of magic, both in the ministry and at Hogwarts, pass in and out of his line of sight. They moved hurriedly but with a strange flatness. They were like puppets or paper dolls, insubstantial and somehow unreal. They moved and talked and gesticulated and congregated but Harry saw only vague blurs of human shapes. It was like he wasn't wearing his glasses; he couldn't focus on any one person. He just let them flow in and out of his sight. No effort to catch and hold on a single object, no attention to the faces or shapes... just images, flowing past, coming in and vanishing.

His arm hurt. The lancing pain had given way to a throbbing, fiery sensation. He knew his arm hurt, part of him felt it, but even his own injury seemed disconnected. He cradled his wounded arm but it seemed autonomic, preprogrammed and stilted.

There was a blackness in his blood. He felt a thick, dark weight push through him with every hollow heartbeat. It pounded in his temples, ached on his forehead, sludged with freezing tendrils to his limbs and skin.

With each passing moment he felt less and less. The pain wasn't searing anymore, the terror ebbed, even the grief thinned. It left very little person in its wake when all the substance of him was stretched so far. He existed because laws said he did, but Harry watched his teachers bustle about, and he thought maybe he was a ghost. His mind played tricks and maybe he wasn't really there; maybe he'd died in the graveyard. Maybe he was a ghost, like Cedric, like his parents. Maybe he was dead and didn't know it.

He certainly felt more like a ghost than a person. An odd peace, a stillness, settled around him with that thought. Yes, dead... where there was no pain, no fear, no self... he could be that.

Maybe he'd disappear at any moment. No one seemed to see him. He could be dead. He should be floating but for the thick evil in his blood, bound to a demon and thrumming with a darkness he didn't own. It was in him like a disease, a possession. Black, thick, and oily instead of smooth, watery red. He would be a ghost but for that heaviness in his veins.

Death was cold. He was certainly that. One of the few sensations that did register, a sense that penetrated his nonexistence to hint of physical form, was cold. The room got colder and colder as time trudged on. He couldn't move to ward it off, his body wouldn't let him find someplace warm, but he felt it. Like the icy air when Dementors swarmed. He shouldn't know that, he was just a boy. A boy with demon blood.

Vaguely, distantly, he knew his body was trembling. It tightened painfully in his arm, made his insides ache and his brain pulse against his skull, but it wasn't enough for him to do anything about it. He wouldn't move for that... couldn't.

His blood roared in his ears, an increasing tempo of '_whoosh, whoosh_' that grew louder, filled his senses, and then he heard nothing of the conversation flying around him. He saw lips moving, hands gesturing, but as for sound, comprehension... it was out of his grasp. They weren't making sense, they were on another plane, in a dream, hazy and illusory.

He thought he was colder. He thought his arm hurt. It was hard to think, but then, ghosts with evil blood didn't have to think. They were, and Harry only was, in his corner, invisible, unnoticed.

And so cold.

* * *

McGonagall stepped back from the ministry attendants as they finally came to collect Crouch Junior. She could not be far enough away from the man. He'd go back to Azkaban where he belonged, and if there was any justice he'd suffer the most hideous punishment for what he'd done.

The full scope of what exactly he'd done and the activities to which he was party, however, were still a little uncertain. Things were in upheaval. Dumbledore had gone to speak with the heads of the other schools; they demanded to know what had happened in the maze. No one knew. There were pieces, speculations, assumptions, but so much was still unknown.

So very dreadful that a student had died. And Voldemort... if it were true then Hogwarts was bound to see dark times ahead. Especially with Harry–

McGonagall quickly scanned the room, almost frantically, when she suddenly remembered the boy. Surely he'd been taken away from the center of all this ugliness, but she couldn't remember seeing anyone leave with him. She was aghast to see him still in the room, standing unsteadily by a far wall. His clothes were in tatters, dirty and torn, and his skin was mottled with grime and blood. He was loosely holding his bloody arm to his body, and his eyes were locked and unfocused on a distant, unseen point. His skin was pale and his eyes terrifyingly empty. He looked so small. She had told Dumbledore it was a mistake to let Potter compete in the tournament. Just a boy. A mere boy. How had they allowed it to come to this?

McGonagall moved quickly across the room and only slowed when she was two steps from Harry. "Mister Potter?" she ventured gently and canted her head to try and meet his gaze.

Harry didn't respond to her voice or presence. He continued to stare vacantly and absently cradle his arm.

McGonagall drew closer and soon realized Harry was shaking. His breathing was shallow and irregular.

"Mister Potter," she tried again and reached out to touch him. Her fingers curled softly around his shoulder and Harry swayed drunkenly under her hand. Moody's room had quickly cleared, only Snape remained behind rummaging through Moody's belongings, looking for anything that might be tied to the Dark Lord and Crouch Junior's handiwork.

"Harry?" McGonagall said, this time in concern. Harry wasn't answering, he wasn't listening, and he was so pale, his skin frighteningly cold to the touch, his entire frame trembling.

Snape, hearing McGonagall's tone, paused to look over his shoulder in their direction in mild curiosity.

McGonagall gasped and quickly wrapped her arms around Harry's shoulders when, without warning, he started to fall. "Severus!" she called reflexively, and Snape reached their side in two strides. Harry was leaning heavily into McGonagall, still feebly cradling his arm, still staring sightlessly, still shaking.

Harry's legs started to fold under him.

McGonagall gave a pitiful sound and Snape reached out and gripped Harry's upper arm in a firm fist. In the next moment it wasn't enough when Harry's legs buckled and he started to fall. In one movement Snape scooped the boy up and presently stood with Harry in his arms. McGonagall's hand came to her mouth and Snape held the boy's limp body away from him like it was a wet raccoon.

Harry's head lolled and his arms simply folded atop his stomach.

"Quickly, we must get him to the hospital wing," McGonagall said, and Snape gave one appraising look at Harry in his hold and had to agree with McGonagall.

* * *

Hermione scarcely dared to breathe. She could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage and her muscles tensed to the point of shaking. Ron's body pressed so closely to hers made it uncomfortably hot under the cloak, but Hermione barely noticed him. Ron was just as silent as she, and probably just as terrified. From the look on his face before they'd nicked Harry's cloak from his chest, she considered herself lucky that he wasn't vomiting down the back of her neck. As for herself, she was holding her breathing so strictly in check because she feared any exhale would come out a sob.

They must not be heard. She and Ron were crouched by the far wall of the hospital wing. Waiting.

After Harry returned to the arena with Cedric's body there had been shocked stillness, numb inactivity. Hermione noted only that Cedric was dead, Harry had been led away in a bad state, Cedric was dead, people were crying, Cedric was dead. When the remaining professors snapped out of the mass stupor they ordered the prefects to herd the students back to the castle.

It was then Hermione started thinking straight. Harry was missing. They had to find Harry. From the glimpses of blood, from his wails, she was certain he'd be taken to the hospital wing. She'd grabbed Ron's arm, dragged him unflinchingly up the boys' stairway, fetched Harry's invisibility cloak, and with it masking their passage they made their way to the hospital wing. They would not be stopped, _Hermione_ would not be stopped, they had to see Harry.

They arrived, however, to find the room empty. No Harry. No Pomfrey. Just silence. It was baffling, it made no sense, but Hermione shuffled herself and Ron to a wall, out of the way of traffic, and they silently waited. Harry would be brought here, Hermione wouldn't let go of that certainty. She had to see Harry, had to know that he was okay. That one student had returned dead, but _Harry was all right_.

It seemed they waited a small infinity before the doors opened and the empty room was suddenly inundated. Hermione's heart leapt into her throat and her knees threatened to fold under her. She heard Ron abruptly stop breathing beside her at the same sight that had made Hermione feel decidedly unsteady.

Dumbledore led the procession, followed quickly by McGonagall. Both turned to look back at Professor Snape. Snape was carrying Harry's limp form. Hermione grimaced and bit her lip, wanting to scream. No! She wanted to rush from the cloak's safety, run to Snape and snatch Harry from the teacher's hold. Harry wouldn't wake up for him! Harry hated Snape. But she and Ron could wake him, she was sure of it. They were his best friends; he'd wake for them well before he ever would for Snape. She knew Harry would. More times than she could count she'd convinced Harry to do something on her urging. She knew how to win Harry's will, and that was no small feat to boast. She could _make_ him wake up. Harry would listen to her, he _had_ to! He absolutely _could not_ be dead.

Snape looked rather put out having to carry his despised student, but he obeyed Pomfrey's commands as she trotted in after Snape and bade him to lay the boy gently on a bed.

Gently. One wouldn't gently lay a corpse. He had to be alive! Hermione's hands clutched the cloak savagely and her heart tried to tear at the seams under the stress of not knowing.

Harry was placed, gently, on a cot. He was completely unresponsive. His face was deathly pale under the dirt and blood. He didn't move at all of his own volition, lying limply where he was placed. Hermione could barely stop the screams lodged in the back of her throat. Do something! Help him!

Snape retreated and Pomfrey was at Harry's bedside immediately. She physically rolled Harry's head so she could pry back his eyelids, look at his gums, feel his pulse. Harry was like a coma patient, oblivious. Dumbledore watched worriedly while McGonagall wrung her hands and chewed her nails like a school girl wondering if any boy would ask her to the dance. Being Hermione of only a few weeks ago, actually; Hermione was too sick with dread to find the humor in that.

Pomfrey withdrew her wand and whispered an incantation over Harry's prone form. She gave a small flick of her wand.

To Hermione's immeasurable relief, Harry's eyes snapped open.

For a split second he merely stared, wide-eyed and unfocused. Then he panicked. Like a spooked cat, Harry leapt up the bed, away from Pomfrey. He hit the wall and gasped.

"Harry…" Dumbledore said slowly in his softest, most soothing voice.

Harry clutched his right arm to his body, curled into a ball, and collapsed to one side as he let out a strangled, pitiful moan and threw up.

McGonagall jumped back and Snape moved farther from the bed with a disgusted sneer.

Pomfrey conjured a small vial of potion and reached toward Harry. After vomiting he had curled on his side in a fetal position, cradling his arm and shaking. Heart-wrenching whimpering sounds were coming from his throat.

When Pomfrey touched him he cried out as though struck.

"Mister Potter, please… drink this, it will calm you."

Harry tucked into a tighter ball and clenched his eyes shut, as though to blot out awareness of others' existence.

"Mister Potter," McGonagall pleaded.

Dumbledore held up his hand to silence both women and walked over to Harry's cot. Without a care to the mess Harry had made, Dumbledore sat down on the edge of the bed, reached out a hand to Harry's head, and began petting his hair like one would a beloved dog. The old wizard's lips moved in silent words, but the effects were soon noticeable. Harry began to relax, he stopped shaking and crying, and eventually he was taking deep, ragged breaths.

"That's a good boy," Dumbledore said, then held out his other hand for the potion. Pomfrey gave it to him, and Dumbledore leaned forward, closer to Harry, and said, "Now do take this, Harry. Better than lemon drops. It will help, I promise."

Harry languidly rolled on to his back and looked up Dumbledore. He looked as though already in a drugged stupor, lulled and numbed by the headmaster's magical words. Dumbledore gave a small nod and smile and brought the vial to Harry's lips. Harry obediently opened his mouth and the potion was slowly poured in.

Then everything stopped for five minutes. In that time Harry visibly relaxed under the potion's effects. He started to react more normally to his surroundings, no longer behaving as though painfully gun shy of every little movement and sound. Dumbledore eventually stopped patting Harry's hair, but he remained seated beside the boy.

Harry finally blinked and asked in a cracked voice, "What happened?"

Dumbledore patted Harry's arm softly. "Afraid to say you passed out. Completely understandable."

Harry frowned, still a little confused. "I don't remember…"

Pomfrey was quick to dart back in now that the patient was no longer hysterical. "Nasty state of shock you were in, Mister Potter. Now, let me see that arm of yours."

Harry sat up carefully, eyed Pomfrey, then held out his wounded arm. He glanced down at the soiled bed and stammered, "I'm sorry…"

Dumbledore waved his wand deftly and the mess disappeared. "Sorry about what, Harry?"

Harry swallowed but didn't answer.

"We need you to tell us what happened, about Voldemort."

Hermione was silently crying by the time Harry gave a broken report of what had happened during the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. His recount was stilted and brief, everyone in the room to a person knew it wasn't the full story, but by the end they knew enough. They knew the Dark Lord had returned. Ron's arm found its way to Hermione's waist and by the end of Harry's hesitant tale he was squeezing her so tight it hurt. Hermione couldn't speak to tell Ron to let up.

McGonagall was holding a hand to her mouth, Snape was deep in troubled thoughts, Dumbledore looked personally afflicted, and Pomfrey was trying to focus only on her work without much success (if her croaks and gasps were any indication).

After his abbreviated account, the blank expression Harry had held ever since drinking the calming potion began to change into a tense, pained look. He winced, grimaced, and finally pulled his arm away from Pomfrey to hunker down on the bed in a curled up position, arms crossed over his stomach, his right one with care.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked in obvious concern.

"It… hurts," came Harry's reply in a thin voice.

"Where?" Pomfrey queried, sounding a little surprised.

Harry shivered and his voice was harrowingly small. "Ev…everywhere."

Pomfrey looked to Dumbledore, consternated. "That potion should have eased any pain for at least three hours."

Snape, from his sentry position some paces away, said pointedly, "Anesthetic potions wouldn't hold with the after-effects of the Cruciatus."

Complete silence descended. Hermione's heart seemed to stop cold in her chest. No. Oh, please, _no_.

Dumbledore's eyes turned down to Harry searchingly. Harry didn't speak, wouldn't even look at the teachers, only hunched his shoulders and knit his brow. His silence was answer enough.

Pomfrey was the first to speak. Infuriated. "He wouldn't! To a boy! Of all the bloody, vicious, cruel… an unforgivable curse!" The stout woman's face grew red. Hermione couldn't remember seeing Pomfrey so angry. For the time being, Pomfrey seemed to have forgotten that this was certainly not the first time Harry had been on the receiving end of an unforgivable curse.

McGonagall was just as affronted. "That beastly creature of a man!"

No one questioned Snape's assessment or his expertise in the subject.

Dumbledore seemed resigned… for now. He'd be mad on Harry's behalf later. "What can you do for him, Poppy?"

Pomfrey took control of her fury and said sadly, "Not much, not nearly enough. One of the horrors of the Cruciatus is its resistance to potions and spells to ease the suffering of the after-effects. It's ghastly," Pomfrey looked defeated that there was so little she could do to help Harry.

Dumbledore nodded. "In that case, let us do what little we can."

Hermione and Ron remained crouched by the wall under the cloak while Pomfrey cleaned Harry's wounds, gave him numbing potions for what little good it would do to try and ease the aching, and finally did a cleansing charm to rid his skin of the dirt and grime of the contest. He could still do with a hot bath and some sleep; there were some things even the best charms and spells couldn't replace. For now, Pomfrey had done all she could do.

"I think we should let Harry rest," Dumbledore finally proclaimed. Hermione's attention peaked. They'd dared not move, lest they give away their presence, and her muscles were aching from staying frozen in such an awkward position. At odd intervals she'd had to elbow Ron when he, too, felt the cramps of staying crouched down and tried to lean on her to spare his own muscles. But now things were changing, people were clearing out. Maybe they would at last get to go to Harry.

Snape had left some time ago, but McGonagall had to be escorted to the door, clearly reluctant to abandon Harry. Pomfrey was almost apoplectic when she was also herded away. She stuttered and huffed, but Dumbledore merely said, "I admire your dedication, my friend, but as you said there is little you can do. He needs some peace and rest."

As the two women were leaving Dumbledore said loudly, "Minevra, should you happen across Mister Weasley and Miss Granger on your way back, do send them down here, won't you? They must be dreadfully worried."

The door was barley shut, and Dumbledore still standing with his back turned, when Hermione boldly threw off the cloak from her shoulders and stepped out brazenly. Ron made one attempt to grab her and haul her back, but Hermione's determination and resolve made her too quick and Dumbledore turned at that moment.

Ron, knowing they were caught, dropped the cloak and waited.

"Ah, Mister Weasley and Miss Granger," Dumbledore said in a knowing tone, "how fortunate for you to show up so unexpectedly."

Hermione tried to think of something to say but the words were caught in her chest. She wasn't functioning beyond the need to see Harry. After a few seconds staring mutely at Dumbledore, she abandoned the attempt to formulate any kind of explanation for the headmaster and strode across the room to Harry's bed. Ron was right behind her.

He looked even worse up close. She could see the faint remainders of bruises and the red lines of cuts that had been healed closed. He was so pale, his face lined with the grimaces of pain, as he curled on his side, arms tucked close. He looked like he was bracing to be kicked, bent double to guard against blows.

"Harry…" she said gently and sat down beside him. She dropped her hand to his arm and felt the chill to his skin.

Harry opened his eyes at the touch. For a split-second he tensed and started to shift away from her. He only stopped when he registered that it was Hermione. He looked openly at her, a harried, sick anguish in his unabashed gaze. Hermione felt a tear trickle a path down her cheek. She could see so much pain, in his eyes, in the thin press of his lips, in the pinched skin around his eyes. It was there, bare and raw. The horror of Voldemort, the grief of Cedric, the agony of _Crucio_.

Harry tried to smile for his friends, but it was pathetic and pointless. In the end he settled on a strained, "Hey, guys."

"Bloody hell, mate," Ron muttered from over Hermione's shoulder.

"Truly the act of a despicable being," Dumbledore said somberly in agreement.

Hermione moved her hand to Harry's head and tenderly brushed his disheveled black hair back from his knitted brow. She was consumed with the need to touch him, to feel him living and real under her hands. She didn't care how it might look or who else was in the room watching. They'd nearly lost him tonight. She touched Harry. Harry shivered and his breath sounded strained, but he permitted the contact.

"It may be a difficult night for Harry," the headmaster said gravely. "The effects of the Cruciatus curse are not easily shaken. As there is regrettably nothing Madam Pomfrey can do to ease his pain, I imagine he would be most comfortable in his own bed."

Hermione was only half-listening, too preoccupied with the sight of Harry so battered and torn. She felt as though she couldn't properly come to grips with just how close he'd come to dying. Was there even a way to properly come to grips with something like that? It could have easily been Harry's body, cold and lifeless, instead of Cedric's. With Voldemort, death was always a very real threat, and it had been a horrifyingly close call for Harry tonight. It made her blood run cold to think of it, even as she watched Harry hurt for his narrow escape.

Dumbledore turned to Ron. "Mister Weasley, if I arrange for Misters Longbottom, Thomas, and Finnegan to be lodged elsewhere for the night, could you and Miss Granger see Harry discretely back to his room?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, all right, we can do that."

"Very good. I leave him then in your hands."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I neglected to give credit where credit was due in my first post. How rotten of me. Many thanks to my beta, Sil. Without her this fic would be full of totting :)

And while I'm throwing out kudos, as ever a shout-out to Sierra Phoenix. Without her assisting one techno-peon named MissAnnThropic no one would get to read any of my stories.

This chapter contains material intended from mature audiences.

* * *

Hermione could not sleep. She lay in bed, her mind racing. Scant hours ago she and Ron had helped Harry up from his hospital bed, sandwiched him between them, each slinging one of Harry's arms over their shoulders, then draped themselves in the cloak and led Harry toward the Gryffindor tower. As promised, the room Harry and Ron normally shared with three other boys was empty. They set Harry down gingerly on his bed and he seemed to sag in a measure of relief to be back to somewhere familiar and safe.

Hermione had stood by a little awkwardly as Ron fetched Harry's night shirt and pajama pants. Harry, beyond modesty, had struggled out of his clothes and into his night attire. Hermione got him a glass of water to sit on the nightstand in case he was thirsty during the night. They settled Harry into bed and asked if he wanted anything. No. They asked if he was feeling any better. Maybe just a little. Did he need more blankets, because he was shaking rather badly. Yes, he was quite cold. Eventually Harry was tucked under Dean's, Seamus's, and his own quilts, had water within reach, his wand in sight, his pillow fluffed, and finally Harry had to say he was okay and they had to leave him at that. After that, they just stayed in the room with him and kept him company. No one spoke of Voldemort.

Hermione hadn't wanted to leave, but it got late and she was forced to retire to the girls' dormitory. She could only trust that Ron could handle any of Harry's needs on his own. She'd gone back to her dorm room late and all the other girls were already in bed. Two were crying themselves to sleep. One was clutching a stuffed hippogriff like a small child. Hermione didn't cry. She had spent all her tears at Harry's hospital bed. Now she was just bone-weary and hurting inside… hurting for Harry and what he'd been through.

After a good hour staring at the black ceiling Hermione couldn't take it anymore. To devil with the rules, she had to see if Harry was doing okay. She wouldn't rest until she knew he was still safe, still breathing, still _alive_ to hurt.

Without a sound, Hermione slipped out of bed in her nightgown, grabbed her wand out of habit, and left the room. She crept into the common room, up the boys' stairwell, and with agonizing slowness eased open the door to Ron and Harry's room.

She stood frozen a moment to try and make out the room. When the moonlight stood out from night shadows enough for Hermione to see she tiptoed inside and closed the door. She could hear Ron closest to her, snoring. She was instantly disgusted that he was sleeping, when Harry might need something, but Hermione quickly forgot her anger as she moved silently to Harry's bed.

She could see his shape huddled under the mountain of blankets, and at first she couldn't tell if he was sleeping or not. Tentatively, she reached out and tracked her hand up the fluff of quilts, questing toward Harry's head. She stopped shy and leaned in, trying to catch sight of his eyes to determine if they were open or closed.

Her answer came by sound. He hiccupped, like a muffled sob, and Hermione's heart bled. He was so wounded and alone. Even though Harry always did stand alone, he usually seemed strong doing it. Not now. Now he seemed lost.

With Gryffindor courage, and careful not to wake Ron, Hermione pulled back the amassed covers enough to slip into the warm cocoon with Harry. She could feel him shaking in the faint vibrations in the mattress before she'd even touched his body. She couldn't tell if he knew she'd joined him in bed or not. She had to think he knew she was there, but he could have been too disoriented to notice. Hermione knew the textbook profile of the Cruciatus, she could say what he would feel, but to _see_ him feel it was so different from anything she'd read.

She wouldn't let him physically withdraw. She would try to ease the nerve-searing residual pain. She would be there to see him through the symptoms of shock. She wouldn't let him recoil from contact, because she wasn't going to give his tortured mind time to decide human touch was bound to hurt. She'd talk to him to distract him from any bouts of nausea. She'd be there so she and the night could absorb his tears in secret. She wouldn't let Harry suffer the way the stupid books said he would, Hermione wasn't going to stand by and allow for it.

Hermione gave a whispered command and a flick of her wand and the curtains surrounding Harry's bed fell into place, shrouding the mattress and its occupants with privacy. She then placed a silencing charm around them. If Harry dreamt tonight, he need only wake her.

Satisfied, Hermione wedged her wand between the mattress and springboard, out of the way, and snuggled down in the covers. Carefully, she scooted over toward Harry.

When they touched, her fingertips finding his chest, he sucked in a breath and tensed. She pulled back to give him a moment, to not feel cornered or pressured. She didn't try again until he exhaled.

Hermione found his arm in the dark, traced it to his shoulder, his neck, then up into his hair. Harry's breathing caught and hitched but he didn't fight or jerk away.

Hermione slowly, rhythmically threaded her fingers through his hair, again and again. Her mother had comforted her in the same way so many times as a young girl and it had always soothed her. Hermione didn't know of a better way to comfort Harry.

Harry lay still and let her do it. His breathing still did funny things, but he was permitting the touch. The books would say he wouldn't. Hermione already felt she was besting the authors.

Harry croaked, like he was trying to say something, then suddenly and unexpectedly grabbed her. The snatch of his arms around her was almost desperate. She didn't offer even a second's resistance. Hermione slid over quickly to him and Harry clutched at her and trembled. At first he was rigid, tense as his psyche warred with itself, battled between the part saying this was contact and it would hurt him and the part that knew it was Hermione and that Hermione would never hurt him. The harder he fought himself, the tighter his hold grew. But he continued to hold her.

Hermione whispered softly to him, continued to stroke his hair, and Harry pressed her tight against him. And then, at a moment she couldn't pinpoint but knew had come all the same, Harry's traumatized gut instinct lost out to his reason. Once it did, his death-grip hold on her loosened slightly. His reason for squeezing her so tightly had shifted and with it his crushing pressure, though his hug was still surprisingly strong. Now he was holding Hermione because it helped.

Hermione realized this had been for her as much as it had been for him. She needed to know he was alive. If he was holding her, he was with her. It was all that mattered.

Harry's grip was unrelenting. His arms were like vices around her torso. One of his legs tangled in hers, as though to prevent her from leaving. He buried his face in her neck and Hermione switched to rubbing his back.

Harry flinched.

"Don't… don't…" he croaked, and Hermione stopped her circles on his back, afraid she'd hurt him.

"No," Harry whimpered, "just don't… don't go."

Hermione immediately began rubbing his back again. She hurt for him. She hated for him; never had she hated the way she did Voldemort just then. "Oh, Harry. I'm here. I'll never go."

Harry sucked in a few shuddering breaths and his arms found new places to hold her, never giving her a moment to move away. Hermione didn't intend to, anyway.

Harry nuzzled deeper into the mane of her hair, his breath hot on her throat. Hermione was shocked when a shiver ran down her spine. She wasn't sure why, or what flush had raced up her chest to her cheeks, but she'd attend to it later. For now there was only Harry. She hugged him close, almost as strongly as he held her.

Harry's hands moved, uncertainly at first. Initially she thought he was touching base with her, reaffirming again and again she was really with him, comforting him, with every new place he touched. His hand clutched at her waist and Hermione curled one arm around his shoulders to hold him that much nearer. Her remaining hand she placed on his chest for the sake of feeling his heart, beating steadily, fast and strong, beneath her fingers. It made her own heartbeat quicken to feel his.

For all the manner of terrible she felt, this felt oddly good, too.

Harry's face, so far tucked innocuously in the crook of her neck, turned into her skin. Hermione sucked in a sharp breath when she felt his lips press lightly, lingeringly, against her throat. He kissed her! And then he did it again, tasting, testing kisses on her neck, under the veil of her hair.

Hermione shivered again. Hot senselessness swept over her. She became oddly devoted to sensation, and her mind wasn't doing most of its usual supervising. Unbidden, she leaned her head back to give him better access. Harry took it, kissed her throat and below her ear, and all the while his hands were moving.

Hermione trembled wildly as Harry leaned forward, toward her, just barely rolling her until he was looming over her, continuing to kiss her neck. She didn't know what had happened, how her concern for Harry had turned into _this_, but a part of her was screaming that it didn't bloody matter how. Her heart was racing, whether out of terror or elation she couldn't decide.

Harry leaned over her, pressed against her. Hermione whimpered involuntarily at the touch. She fought for just one good breath. She didn't really notice the way her hands, each of them having developed a life of its own, were curled around Harry's shoulders.

Harry's breath was ragged and heavy against her skin as his lips parted to kiss her. Only _then_ did she realize, with a shock of clarity, what this was. She wouldn't know, she was a teenager, never one fancied by the boys, she had no experience to tell her, but even she knew what his kisses were. What _it_ meant. Where it meant they were both headed.

Hermione discovered in that terrifying, jarring moment, that she _wanted_ it to happen.

Every denial and block she'd ever built around her best friend that kept him firmly in the friend category, that cloaked his attractiveness for her own sanity, shattered beyond repair. And then it was Harry, the very good-looking, caring, wonderful person she could not imagine a life without touching her like that. And she responded to him as if she were one of the beautiful girls at Hogwarts and not merely the bushy-haired, bossy bookworm.

Harry's breath escaped him in a rush, as though the gravity of what they were doing just hit him, too. But he didn't stop. Hermione wasn't sure, in his state of mind, he could be that strong. He was on the edge of broken… he was also on the cusp of experiencing something besides pain.

Hermione wasn't going to deny him.

She tugged at his arms, guided him up, and when she could she kissed him on the mouth. Harry was seeking entrance past her lips with his tongue in the next breath, and Hermione surrendered. Harry thoroughly kissed her. And there was something desperate in his kiss, something understandably needy and even angry. Angry at Voldemort. Hermione was angry, too, and she told Harry so with the force of her kiss.

Harry suddenly pulled back. For the briefest of moments he paused. He was breathing hard. Maybe fear, maybe excitement, maybe fighting sobs. Hermione couldn't know, had to help, needed Harry.

Hermione reached out and found his chest. She gathered his shirt front in her hand and tugged him toward her. She didn't pull hard, didn't do anything enough to spook him, but she made it clear. She was there for him. He wasn't alone.

Only after, while cradling an exhausted Harry, did Hermione think about Ron only a bed away. About tomorrow when she would have to face Harry in the light. About her parents or the teachers who would be scandalized to find out what they'd done.

Harry's breathing slowly began to even out and he gingerly moved to lie next to her.

For a moment Hermione could feel Harry looking at her, mind plagued with questions he didn't want to ask but couldn't help thinking. Some of them would be the same as her own. Hermione doubted he'd ask; Harry wasn't like that.

Hermione felt a sense of completion and fulfillment that she could be here for him this way. Ron could not have done it. Cho or Parvati wouldn't have been enough. Hermione had given him absolute support on his darkest night. He'd been faced with a choice between retreat and advance, and she'd provided him the safest of places to go. Hermione was not sorry for what had happened. She couldn't bring herself to feel regret for being with Harry. She had nothing to complain about, so very many things for which to be thankful. Harry was there to do what they'd done, alive to be with her, and he was Harry enough to be beyond regret.

The moment of tension was broken, and Harry hadn't asked a single question… as Hermione knew he wouldn't. His arm slowly, almost questioningly, snaked out and around her waist. Hermione rolled into him, came up flush against his body, and brought her hand to rest on his side.

Harry pulled her closer, perched his chin atop her head, and it was, in that moment, the most insanely sweet thing anyone had ever done to her. Hermione smiled into his chest and relaxed into his hold. It wasn't over, not by far, but the hardest part for Harry, for now, was past, and he'd come through still strong and alive.

* * *

Additional Author's Note: I know this one's short, but given the significance of what transpired in this chapter, it seemed cheap to cram it together with additional scenes.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Let me see if I can just touch on some of the more major queries/issues brought up in the reviews. Yes, Harry and Hermione did have sex in the previous chapter. Sorry for any ambiguity, but I was trying very hard to keep it clean. And if you had issues with their age, _believe me_ it could not equal the dilemma I faced regarding this story. I went back and forth for months on whether or not to post the story at all because that one scene bothered me so much. I considered editing it out entirely, but without it the rest of the dynamic between Harry and Hermione lost something (IMO). With trepidation aplenty, I went ahead and posted it and hoped it didn't terribly offend anyone. In the end, my justification for leaving it in was that it was an emotionally raw moment for both of them, they were vulnerable, and in that state they did something they would not otherwise do. That and Harry and Hermione could hardly been categorized as normal kids to begin with.

* * *

In her dream, they were watching her. She was at Cedric's memorial service, but instead of being on a bench she was standing at the front of the Great Hall, between the congregated students at her front and Dumbledore at her back. And all their eyes were on her. She could feel their stares locked on her, pinning her with discomfort, self-consciousness, and a wild, unexplainable agitation that bubbled in her blood. She could scream but for their scrutiny. Her eyes swept the crowd, the countless faces with unblinking eyes watching her. She couldn't find Harry. He wasn't there. Panic washed over her, so thick it ached in her body. She turned her head and strained to see through the throng of students but she couldn't find Harry. Beyond their faces, toward the back of the crowd, she saw Cedric, his gaze the most unblinking of all, his face bloodied, skin ashen, body unnaturally still as he watched her. Cedric present in the crowd… that meant this memorial service would be for someone else. Where was Harry! If they would all stop watching her and let her get to Harry before he died!

Hermione flinched awake with the coiled snake of terror taut in her chest. Her hand reflexively slid a few inches across the covers in a blind search for her wand.

And then she stopped, breath held when her surroundings registered.

She was lying in bed. The soft light of morning was a blanket of its own. She was cognizant of her body for the unfamiliar aching sensation. There was not a sound, nothing to have roused her.

The panic of her dreamscape ebbed away… but the sense of being watched remained.

Hermione turned her eyes upward, as though sensing a presence, and her gaze fell upon Ron. She stiffened and for a time couldn't even think, could only look at him.

Ron was standing near the head of the bed where he'd pulled aside the curtains to look inside. At first Hermione could not understand why he was in her dorm.

Then Hermione remembered she wasn't in her bed, she was in Harry's, and the myriad memories of what had transpired last night rushed at her like a rockslide with each pebble and boulder a vivid detail. Hermione's heart began to hammer as she watched Ron for a reaction. She felt the urge to reach down and tug the covers, currently draped across her middle, up to her chest like they did in the movies, even though she did have her nightgown on, but she couldn't manage even that. She was too afraid to move until she could get a read on Ron's reaction.

Ron, obviously, had not expected to find Hermione in Harry's bed. He seemed to stare at her a long time in incomprehension. Hermione stared back.

Ron finally shifted his gaze away from Hermione to a spot beyond her shoulder. He'd be looking at Harry. Hermione desperately wanted to look, too, she ached to know he was there, yearned to check to see if he was okay, but not until Ron caved.

Shortly, Ron looked back into Hermione's eyes. His expression remained inscrutable but for a slight relaxing of his lips. And then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. Hermione's breath silently escaped her and she felt her sore muscles unlock. She'd never felt such an aged sense of camaraderie with Ron as she did in that instant.

Without a word, careful not to make a sound, Ron disappeared. The curtain fell back in place and Hermione listened to his footsteps leave the room.

Only then did Hermione move. She closed her eyes and fought to calm her heart. She didn't know what had just happened, what it would mean for the future, but right now she let it leave with Ron. When she could breathe she tentatively rolled over and looked toward Harry.

And the vestiges of panic that had wrapped around her trachea from the depths of her dream faded away like wisps of smoke. Harry lay in bed beside her, sleeping. He was on his side facing her, and Hermione studied him. His face was not the normal calm repose of sleep; tension lingered even in slumber. His eyes weren't softly shut but rather seemed resolutely closed. A hinting shadow on his brow threatened to blossom into a full furrow. His mouth was pinched, his body curled under the blankets and arms folded over his chest. He looked like he was primed to defend himself from attack, and it was heart-breaking to see. But she could see him breathe, could feel his body heat so close because the bed wasn't made to fit two. Harry was still there, he was alive. Hermione sighed in immense relief.

She noted, in a kind of reminiscent passing, that if his hair was a little more disheveled than normal, and if his body seemed more solid and real to her than it used to, and if the swell in her chest when she looked at him was a bit stronger than it had once been, in her eyes he was remarkably unchanged for their illicit meeting last night. She woke beside him in his bed the morning after and it was still Harry. Last night the girl in her had not been sure so much could stay the same after what they'd done; now she knew better. She could go on if this is how it would be. There was an immeasurable relief in that.

And then Hermione was looking at the still-present ghosts of Harry's injuries, the hint of pain even in sleep that claimed his form, and she ached anew for him… in ways beyond how she already ached, anyway.

Hermione called gently, "Harry."

Harry's breath stuttered tensely then the shadow became the promised furrow. His lips pressed tighter together and he ducked his head down, burrowing into the pillow.

"Harry." Hermione reached out carefully and touched his shoulder.

That woke him. Harry flinched and jerked back, eyes flying open and for a moment he looked unseeingly at her.

Hermione removed her hand and waited.

She could see recognition sink in. The bewildered, startled expression changed to familiarity and relief. Then the pain still coursing through his body, remnant of the Cruciatus Curse, set his features in a grimace. And then his eyes flashed deeply and he looked long and hard at her, for a moment the Cruciatus forgotten. She knew their midnight activities had flown back at him.

Hermione quelled the flutter inside her stomach at his heated look and gave a calming smile. She wouldn't let it change them, wouldn't let it make either of them awkward, because she couldn't stand the distance that awkwardness would put between them. "You okay?" she whispered.

Harry blinked at her, seemed to take from her manner the way she was going to treat what they'd done, and in the next moment he accepted and agreed with it. The look left his eyes and back was the old Harry she'd known for years. He nodded to her question and cleared his throat. "Yeah." He cast a quick, questioning look at her that asked 'and you?', since it seemed they weren't going to actually speak to what they'd done. He'd ask with his eyes, instead.

It would be their fleeting moment of looking 'it' in the face together, unflinching. It struck Hermione in her breast, thick and real and part of a world wholly apart from muggle or magic. Hermione smiled her reply. "Best get dressed so we can make it down in time for breakfast."

It was so painfully casual that Harry seemed thrown. He frowned at her, then he lowered his gaze and his shoulders hunched. "I'm really not very hungry…" his voice trailed, but unspoken was the hurt and plea. That he would rather stay in bed, buried under the covers. That the Cruciatus still held him, that the encounter with Voldemort and what had happened to Cedric didn't make the student body of Hogwarts worth braving. That he wanted to curl up, alone, and lick his wounds.

Hermione almost gave in and let him but for selfish reasons she wouldn't this time. She wanted Harry with her, where she knew he was okay. It was out of her sight, in the graveyard, when he'd nearly been killed. A senseless, irrational part of her believed that as long as he was with her he would be okay.

Hermione shuffled closer... maybe a little closer than she would have the day before yesterday. If Ron had not already left Hermione would have tasked him with bringing them something. "Please, Harry, you should eat something. We needn't stay long, just long enough to get some toast and juice to bring back here."

Harry looked up at her at the explicit 'we' of her statement. But then he stopped questioning it. He sighed in grudging surrender. "All right."

Hermione smiled softly. "Right, then, I'll just…" then a flash of awkwardness when there was no way to leave his bed without drawing attention to the fact she was leaving his bed. "I'll just kip over and get dressed and meet you in the common room." Hermione reached down over the side of the mattress and fetched her wand from where she'd stashed it last night then crawled out of bed. As she did, her body seemed to speak to her in an entirely new dialect. Somehow the way her limbs moved, the way her nightgown touched her skin, the way her hair fell over her shoulders… it seemed different. Hers but unacquainted all at once. She was bashfully aware of the sensation of her bum in direct contact with the soft fabric of her nightgown without the usual barrier of her knickers. That was a brand new sensation. She was briefly torn about whether or not to look for her undergarments. They'd be lost, buried somewhere in the covers of Harry's bed, but she couldn't quite face the visceral reality of digging around to find them. As easily as that she abandoned them. She knew Harry would find them later, and she couldn't wrap her head around wondering what he'd do with them, but they were her material sacrifice to last night. With a blush she cast one last look at Harry, just beginning to unfold his legs and arms to clamor out of bed, then headed back to her own dorm to dress.

* * *

Harry was unusually quiet on the way toward the Great Hall. The corridors were deserted, and while at the hour it was not abnormal for that part of the castle to be so quiet, it seemed eerie in the knowledge of last night's events. Hermione stayed close at Harry's side and periodically slid a concerned, searching glance at his face. He looked miles away, ensconced in a dark place that Hermione couldn't perceive. As they approached the doors of the Great Hall, and the buzz of a multitude of voices within, Harry tensed and his pace slowed. Hermione slipped her hand discretely into his and his fingers closed around her hand. His eyes flicked down to her face momentarily, and there was a soul-weary ache there that Hermione hoped would be gone when the after-effects of the Cruciatus abated.

Suddenly Hermione wanted a moment before Harry had to walk into the Great Hall to suffer stares from everyone. She pulled him gently to a stop and without resistance Harry halted and turned to her. He looked down at her and his expression read 'I don't want to do this'. Hermione couldn't tell if it meant breakfast or something much more encompassing.

"I just want to look at your arm before we go in," she said lowly. It was an excuse, but it was true that she wanted to see if the cut on his arm was any better.

Harry looked laconically at her but he didn't pull away when Hermione lifted his right arm and pulled back the sleeve of his robe. Despite having been closed by Pomfrey, it was still a very vivid red mark. Still an angry wound. It still looked dreadfully painful. Hermione grimaced in empathy and traced her fingers down the side of his arm in lieu of being able to touch the injury itself for fear of hurting him further.

A shudder rippled through Harry's body and he tugged his arm free of her.

"Does it still hurt?"

"Yeah," he muttered, and Hermione knew he wasn't just talking about his arm.

"Well, come on then, let's grab something and we'll head back up to the common room."

Harry sighed irritably but followed when Hermione started forward again.

Hermione's world of perception was narrowed down to only Harry until they stepped into the Great Hall. Then the world exploded in eyes and silence. Predictably, everyone turned to look in Harry's direction and went quiet. Hermione felt like reaching out and taking his hand again but refrained by force of will.

Hermione found Ron's face at the Gryffindor table and honed in on him. She made a bee line while Harry followed silently.

Hermione reached their friend and gave a tight smile. "Morning, Ron," she greeted, as though this was the first time today they'd seen one another. Ron looked at her pointedly a moment then looked away to greet Harry. "All right there, Harry?"

Hermione was gathering toast, jam, and a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She was focused, single-minded. Get what they needed and get Harry out. The silence was now interspersed with whispering, hushed words to accompany the unrelenting stares, and Hermione felt a lion-sized impulse to rise up and shield Harry from it.

"Harry."

Hermione startled at Dumbledore's nearby voice; she hadn't seen the headmaster approach them. She looked up at the old wizard, her arms full of toast and juice. Dumbledore continued to address Harry without sparing a word to Hermione. "If you would come with me, I'm afraid the Minister of Magic needs to speak with you about last night."

Hermione quailed inside, indignant that Harry be asked to recount the misadventure again. Her mouth hung open in disbelief as she stood there stupidly with her stolen breakfast items.

Harry only nodded.

"It shouldn't take terribly long, I'll be there and I will have to insist that you be permitted to be seen by Madam Pomfrey as soon as they have what they need. Come along."

Hermione opened her mouth wider to protest, spurred by the recently awakened frantic desire to stay with Harry, but the headmaster silenced her with a mere look and then he was herding Harry away from the other students and out the door.

'At least Dumbledore will be with him,' Hermione thought sourly as she put the bread and pumpkin juice back down. With an agitated huff she plopped down at the table beside Ron. Conversation slowly crescendoed back to normal levels while Hermione frowned down at her untouched toast.

"How is he?" Ron's genuinely concerned voice cut into her thoughts.

Hermione looked up at him and her frustration at Dumbledore and the ministry took a backseat to the immediate presence of Ron, his presence a reminder of what he'd seen, what he knew. She couldn't forget the way he'd looked when she first woke, when he caught her in bed with Harry. Hermione tried not to let on in her expression that their early-morning confrontation was in the forefront of her mind.

She leaned closer to Ron to whisper her answer so no one would listen in. "Well as can be expected I suppose. He says it still hurts, but I think it's a lot better. He doesn't look nearly as pale as he did."

He nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that. Looks loads better." Ron frowned, his eyes cut left and right, then he said, "Listen, Hermione… it was really rotten of me to fall asleep last night, you know, when Harry might have needed something. Dumbledore was counting on us and I blew it. Wasn't something a good friend should have done at any rate, but I'm glad you came in to keep him company at least."

'He doesn't know,' Hermione thought with sudden understanding. Ron had not suspected anything beyond Hermione spending the night with Harry so he wouldn't be alone. And in that moment she was very glad Ron was a thick prat. It made things easier; Ron wouldn't be awkward around them because he didn't know anything untoward had happened between his two best friends. Nothing had changed between the three of them in his mind. And if Ron didn't think anything more had happened, no one would. Ron was close enough to both of them to notice the smallest hints that anyone else would miss. And Ron didn't suspect. Last night was immediately her and Harry's secret.

A sense of relief and ease almost unfamiliar under the current circumstances seemed to trickle through her bones.

"It's okay, Ron. Honestly, I couldn't sleep in my room anyway, not without knowing Harry was okay."

Ron nodded, reassured, and returned to his breakfast.

Hermione played with her slice of toast a moment longer before a sudden thought struck her and she straightened, turned to Ron abruptly, and grabbed his arm.

"Ow!" he yelped, but Hermione ignored his outburst.

"Ron!" she hissed, leaning in again, "we simply can't let him go back to that dreadful family of his after term ends. Can you imagine him spending a summer _there_ with _those people_ after this?"

Ron's mouth pursed unhappily. "You're right." Every term Harry came back from the Dursleys solemn and neglected; it was a week back at Hogwarts before he'd be back to his old self again, before he could shake the influence of his cruel aunt and uncle. It was something neither Ron nor Hermione had failed to notice.

In a shocking display, Ron abandoned his food and stood from the table, gesturing for Hermione to follow. "We'll owl my mum; I _know_ she'd let Harry come stay at the Burrow for the summer."

Hermione jumped up and quickly followed Ron. The Burrow would be so much better than the Dursleys. It was already something of a second home to Harry (the first being Hogwarts; the Dursleys didn't even count as a home but more of a prison), and he'd be with people who actually cared about him. She couldn't bear to think of Harry with those awful relatives of his when he was already so shaken. They'd tear him down in his moment of weakness, like a bloody pack of wolves instead of family members. It was something Harry didn't need right now. And this was something Hermione could do for him, action she could take to safeguard him; get Harry away from those heartless people.


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione and Ron went up to the owlery with a quill and piece of parchment at the ready. Together, heads bent over their letter, the two of them sat on the ledge outside the owlery door and composed the message that would travel to the Burrow to hopefully secure Harry's sanctuary over the summer holiday. Ron was scribbling in his barely legible scrawl while Hermione sat with Pigwidgeon in her lap, clasped between her hands to still the Scoop owl's neurotic bouncing and hooting. Even restrained, the bird still bobbed his head and flailed his taloned feet like a beetle on its back.

"Bloody nuisance, Dad leaving in the middle of the night like that," Ron grumbled as he began to roll up the finished parchment, "coulda just asked him outright while he was here."

"Your dad works for the ministry, makes sense he'd have to get back straight away, wouldn't it?"

Ron didn't answer, instead leaned in to capture one of Pig's restless legs and tied the letter to it. "Take this home to Mum, Pig, and don't get lost, you ruddy bird."

Pig fanned his tail feathers, held back from doing much else, and Hermione opened her fingers to let him go. At once the bird took to the air, making one wild loop before zooming toward the horizon. Hermione watched the twitchy little owl going then turned when a rustle of feathers to her right drew her attention. Hedwig had alighted on the ledge beside Hermione and was looking out reproachfully, with mild disgust, at Pig. Hedwig turned her beautiful amber eyes up to Hermione. Harry's devoted snowy owl looked worried, as though she was fully aware of all that had recently befallen her master. Being a wizard's familiar, perhaps she was. The owl also looked disdainful that the welfare of her master was in the claws of that idiot bird.

Hermione stroked Hedwig's soft, pure white feathers. "I'd have rather sent you, Hedwig, but neither of us asked Harry if it would have been all right and we wanted that letter off as soon as possible."

Hedwig blinked but seemed to grudgingly agree. She blinked again and ruffled her feathers under Hermione's slender fingers.

Hermione looked once more after Pig (who was now a black spec in the sky), then she dropped down from the ledge. "Come on," she said to Ron, "let's go find Dumbledore and let him know we mean for Harry to go home with you this summer." It wasn't even a matter of asking but of insisting. Hermione couldn't fathom being overruled on this, not even by Dumbledore.

Hedwig took a couple of steps across the ledge closer to where Hermione stood and reached out to gently nibble on her shoulder. It was clearly meant to communicate appreciation for their efforts of Harry's behalf.

Ron jumped down to accompany Hermione and Hermione gave Hedwig a last pet before they set off for the castle again.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey stuck her head out of her office when she heard the doors to the hospital wing open.

"Oh. I should have known it would be no good trying to keep you two out," the old witch said when she saw Hermione and Ron enter. Ron gave Madam Pomfrey a rather plaintive look, as though trying to puppy-dog face his way into getting to visit Harry. Hermione took a different approach. Her face was stolid and stony; she defied Pomfrey to tell her to leave.

Either one or the other, both, or neither worked, but whatever the case it didn't really matter because Pomfrey just gave a shake of her head and didn't pester the two students further.

Hermione and Ron found Harry reclined on a bed to the left of the entrance, the sole occupant in the hospital wing. Hermione couldn't ignore how alone he looked. She wanted to hug him, let him know he wasn't alone, soothe him and reassure him, but she knew if she succumbed to that impulse it would be for her benefit and not his. He was alone and despondent but he was also used to it. He'd started summer holiday early; the only thing missing was the physical presence of the Dursleys.

Harry looked up as his two friends came to his bed. "Hi, guys."

"How are you feeling, Harry?"

Ron rolled his eyes before Harry could answer. "Oh, lay off him, Hermione. He's going to go spare with you asking that every time you see him."

Hermione shot a glare at Ron but Harry only smirked, faintly and humorlessly, but it was a lot better than he'd been doing yesterday.

"For your information, Ronald, what I meant was what did Pomfrey say?"

Harry's expression closed and he gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Pretty much the same she said last night. Potions and charms don't work against the Cruciatus, Voldemort's a bastard."

"Bloody right," Ron muttered.

"Did she seem to think you were better?" Hermione pressed.

Harry sighed and somehow it seemed to suddenly, viciously exclude Ron from their discussion. "A bit. Nothing I couldn't have told her, though. I do feel better. Down to feeling like I took a bludger during a match and fell off my Firebolt."

"Ouch," Ron hissed. Hermione frowned, her eyes never leaving Harry while he rubbed the topside of his right forearm with his left hand. She opened her mouth to say something else but changed her mind.

"Well, this should make you feel even better," Ron began, and Hermione moved a few inches aside as though to give Ron the floor. In a sense, it was his heroic moment and she would let him have it. Harry looked up, semi-interested in what Ron was saying. Ron was emboldened. "Hermione and I went to Dumbledore and told him that there wasn't a chance we'd be letting you go back to the Dursleys this summer after… well, you know, after what happened. Insisted you be allowed to come to the Burrow with me, demanded it, didn't we, Hermione? Said there wasn't any bloody way we'd have you at that dreadful house all holiday."

During Ron's speech Harry's expression grew increasingly alert and attentive. The light that ignited in his eyes wasn't so much joy as intensity. He was catching every nuance, every word, every unspoken meaning. Ron was oblivious; Hermione was merely watchful.

"So we kept at him until Dumbledore agreed and said you could spend the whole holiday with me and my family at the Burrow," Ron finished.

Harry didn't answer right away. His eyes cut to Hermione and his gaze held on her what seemed a long time. It was strangely discomfiting and Hermione covered her odd blush by clearing her throat. "It wasn't honestly that difficult. Convincing Dumbledore you should go home with Ron, that is. He seemed to think it was a good idea."

Harry finally tore his eyes from Hermione. He looked at Ron and gave a friendly nod and smile. "Thanks a bunch, Ron. It'll be nice not having to go back to Privet Drive."

Ron grinned. "Right on that count, mate. I've owled Mum asking if you could come. She hasn't owled back yet, but of course she'll say you can. Mum wouldn't turn you away. And it'll be great, having you there all summer. We can play wizard's chess, practice Quidditch, skive off on chores, all sorts of fun stuff."

Harry settled back on the pillows propping his torso up. "I appreciate it." Harry cast another sharp, burning glance at Hermione. She met his eyes and gave a fleeting half-smile.

Ron left to tell the twins and Ginny they'd be having company that summer. Hermione stayed behind with Harry. Once Ron was gone she moved to the side of the bed and sat on the edge. Harry scooted over to give her room but her hip still ended up touching his outer thigh.

"I know that was your idea," Harry finally said.

Hermione smiled at him. "I'm just trying to help you, Harry."

"You are. Seriously, thank you."

Hermione looked down at her lap with the remnants of her smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She didn't know what else to say. She saw Harry stop rubbing his injured arm, saw his right hand move in her direction, waver, and Hermione met him half-way. She reached out her right hand and silently took his hand in hers. Harry curled his fingers around hers and they sat like that a minute, unspeaking and unmoving but for the faint shifting of their connected hands.

Their companionable silence was broken by the doors to the hospital wing opening. Hermione turned her head and saw Dumbledore enter. Pomfrey saw the headmaster as well and took up at his side. Both adults reached Harry's bedside side by side. Dumbledore's eyes moved from Harry to Hermione sitting next to him then to their hands still twined together. Hermione made the barest of movements to pull her hand free but Harry's hold didn't loosen. She took it as indication that he didn't want her to draw away and with that unvoiced request she unwaveringly continued to hold Harry's hand. They were friends and Harry had almost been killed; not even prudish Pomfrey could blame them.

Dumbledore's gaze returned to Harry's face. "I take it Miss Grange and Mister Weasley told you the good news?"

"About going to the Burrow this summer? Yeah."

"I can imagine it comes as a relief."

Harry looked down with something akin to embarrassment on his face. He had a terrible home-life at the Dursleys and everyone knew it. Or at least Dumbledore knew, and that was enough at that moment.

Hermione didn't like the sudden shift and gave Harry's hand a squeeze. She looked up at Dumbledore, annoyed that the gentle old wizard could so inadvertently and casually wound Harry.

Dumbledore returned Hermione's look and, oddly, began to chuckle.

Hermione frowned and Harry looked up, embarrassment replaced with confusion.

"I daresay you've awakened some new dimension of maternal instinct in Miss Granger with recent events, Harry."

Hermione ducked her head and blushed. She hadn't known her look toward Dumbledore had been so transparent. Harry looked to Hermione, their eyes met discretely a second, and he gave a fleeting, private smile that made Hermione's abashment at Dumbledore's comment vanish entirely.

"She put in quite a campaign for you when she and Mister Weasley came to see me a short time ago. Shouldn't have been surprised if she'd drawn her wand on me if I hadn't agreed to your summer holiday accommodations. I suspect the only thing that held her in check was the fact her final scores for this term are still undecided. Well, that and I completely agreed with her. A commendable friend to have in your corner." Dumbledore gave a sincere nod to Hermione and it bolstered her, made her sit up straighter and prouder.

"I know," Harry replied plainly.

Hermione was back to feeling embarrassed and decided to make a break for it. She tugged her hand out from Harry's hold and stood. "Well, I had some things I wanted to tend to before summer holiday. I should go see to them. Thank you again, Headmaster."

When Hermione moved to leave, Harry, for the first time, showed signs of animation more expansive than a shoulder-shrug. He sat up and turned on the bed to let his legs hang over the edge. "Madam Pomfrey, may I leave now?"

Pomfrey's cheeks puffed as she chewed on her distaste of that idea, but she could not change the fact that there wasn't anything medically she could do for him. The mediwitch looked toward Hermione, who had stopped at Harry's request, then gave a huff and hand wave. "Oh, very well."

Harry stood and looked toward Dumbledore. "Was there anything else, sir?"

Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling. "No, no, Harry. You can go."

Harry nodded and looked at Hermione standing beyond Pomfrey and Dumbledore. Their gazes locked and silent communication flared. Hermione waited for him. When Harry caught up with her they both headed toward the doors shoulder to shoulder. Only once they were in the hall did Harry ask, "Where are you going? Care for company?"

Hermione had that bothersome urge to hug him again. "You know I don't mind you coming along, but I'm going to the library." Hermione gave her destination like it was an undesirable place. For Harry, it wasn't exactly the Quidditch pitch, and it would have been enough to send Ron running.

Harry, rather than groan or look glum, smirked. "Shoulda known you'd want to go to the library even though classes are over. Well, let's go, then."

Hermione moved in to Harry's side and curled her arm around his. It wasn't quite the affirming hug she kept feeling inclined to give him, but it seemed to appease that beast within her that needed physical contact to prove he was still okay.

* * *

The next day was Cedric's memorial service. His parents had already taken his body home for the funeral, but the students were gathered in the Great Hall to pay tribute to their fallen comrade. It was then that Dumbledore told the rest of the student body, as well as the representatives of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, what had happened that night in the maze. About Voldemort and Cedric's end at the tip of the _Avada Kedavra_.

Hermione sat beside Harry and heard Dumbledore's voice, but she didn't hear the words. She knew them already. Her attention stayed on Harry. She'd dreaded this. Her dream haunted the edges of her thoughts, and she half-expected to be able to turn and see Cedric's lifeless eyes locked on her from the back of the room. She heard people crying, she knew she was, too, but her main concern was Harry. How would everyone react when they knew what he'd seen in the graveyard? Could anyone who wasn't Harry handle that kind of news? They were all kids, frightened children, next to what Harry had endured his entire life. He shouldn't have to depend on their ability to cope. His life shouldn't be made harder by their inability to handle the truth. Hermione wanted to ferry him away, out of the reach of their taunts and eyes and whispers.

But, as always, Harry proved stronger than for which Hermione gave him credit. He didn't cry, didn't cringe, didn't hide. He sat there and remembered Cedric. He paid tribute as no one else in the Great Hall to their lost classmate.

And if there was to be a backlash from the students toward Harry after hearing the truth, it seemed there was an acclimation period before anyone braved to broach the subject with him. No one gave Harry grief, not even the detestable Slytherins. They weren't comfortable around him, they steered clear and gave him a wide berth, but that was fine. Hermione and Ron were there, and Neville, Ginny, Fred, George, Dean, and Seamus were almost the same as ever. Harry had his buffer of tried and true friends among the students. It would hold until the summer holiday.


	5. Chapter 5

That night in the common room, two days before they would be heading home for summer holiday, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the last ones in the Gryffindor tower still awake, clustered around the hearth fire. Ron was on the rug, on his back with his hands interlaced behind his head, while Harry and Hermione were on the couch. None of the three were talking, but a tension did permeate the air around them. Hermione was anxious about the idea of Harry leaving in two days for the Burrow only because she wouldn't see him until next term. She knew he'd be better off at the Burrow, safe and nurtured by the eminently maternal Molly Weasley, but that didn't appease the griffin in her chest that told her she needed to keep Harry close. She knew it was silly and didn't say anything to either Ron or Harry about it, but it dampened her mood and she could tell the boys noticed. Well, Ron didn't notice so much as pick up on the fact that the atmosphere was a little drearier, because Harry _did_ notice and he'd been quieter for Hermione's grumpiness. It was just as well they'd be leaving for the holidays soon; Hermione was throwing the boys off with her mood. And once she was home she could rest assured that Molly Weasley would be like a hawk when it came to Harry's well-being.

Hermione tucked her leg up underneath her on the cushion and glanced over at Harry. He was in his pajamas, a tatty old hand-me-down T-shirt from Dudley and flannel pants. Unbidden, Hermione noticed the way his shirt hung on his body. Since that first night after Voldemort, the unspeakable night she would never mention to anyone, she discovered she just noticed Harry more acutely than she used to. It was simply that details she never really attended to before suddenly jumped out and she noticed. She also discovered what would probably be considered a guilty pleasure. She _liked_ noticing Harry, the way his hair fell and his body moved and his expression waxed. It was comforting to see him in subtle motion as he was now, breathing and blinking and thinking in the firelight. Somehow it made things right for the time.

Harry was watching her at that very moment, and Hermione tried to remember if he'd been watching her the entire time or just happened to look when she noticed. He watched her rather frequently. Did Harry use to watch her before and she hadn't noticed? She didn't know, but she didn't mind. It wasn't uncomfortable to find him watching her. Watching her just for the sake of watching, the simple act of absently observing. That seemed strange in the same way it was strange that she didn't get flustered when Harry caught her watching him. Maybe for the right to openly watch him, she likewise gave him unspoken permission to watch her in much the same way. And since it was mutual, it was okay.

Both were startled when there was a frantic tapping on the tower window. Ron jerked and looked over his head toward the window. "Oh, good, about time." He rolled to his feet and went to the window. When he opened it, Pigwidgeon came darting in excitedly. He made a few circles of the room before Ron could catch him and remove the note tied to the bird's leg. Once he had the paper he let the bird go and Pig twittered then flew out the open window.

Ron unrolled the scroll with a loathsome look toward the retreating Pig. "Oh, good, it's from Mum. Let's see…" Ron's eyes scanned as he read. "Great! Just like I said, Harry, you can stay. Never doubted it for a second. Mum'll be picking you up from King's Cross with the rest of us. Oh, wait…" Ron read further. "Hey! We're going on a vacation! All of us, I mean. Wow, I didn't figure we'd get to go on another trip so soon after Egypt. Not for another few years, for sure. No worries, mate, you're invited along, naturally."

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked.

"Romania. Cool! Harry, looks like we'll be spending half the summer holiday with Charlie." Ron quickly read a passage in the letter. "What with the tournament… uh… well, on account of that, the lair director, Charlie's boss over in Romania, is letting the dragon-keepers have guests over to test out a kind of public relations program to raise interest in dragon-keeping." Ron read silently a moment. "Wow, looks a bit like the dragon overseers are hoping the use of dragons in the… you know, the tournament, will get more people interested in working with them. Does seem a bit off-balance that the Aurors get all the attention for dangerous jobs, after all, what with fire-breathing dragons!

"In any case, it means we get to spend half of summer holiday in Romania finding out what it's like to work with dragons! How bloody brilliant is that? A bit scary, of course, but not all dragons can be like the ones used this year, could they?"

Hermione could see Ron was quickly getting hyped up about the prospect of a vacation. She knew it wasn't Romania or the dragons in themselves that had him excited, but more the act of going. It was what normal, well-off families would do, spend part of their vacation in another country. That would be all Ron noticed or cared about. Hermione looked toward Harry to get his reaction and found him almost unnaturally still. He was staring into the fire, as though actively trying to be motionless, the only flicker of life a pensive look in his eyes.

At long delay Harry looked up at the exuberant redhead. "Sounds great, Ron." Despite the words, the tone was grave and low. Even Ron, in his state, noticed and his energy lagged.

Harry frowned to himself. "But… well, I think I'd better just go back to Privet Drive."

Ron's mouth opened in shock and Hermione's eyes widened. Harry didn't say a word.

"What?!" Ron ejaculated. He gaped and blinked. "You can't bloody mean that. Why would you want to do that?"

Harry looked distinctly uncomfortable and shifted his gaze away from his friend. "It's just that… I don't really fancy a holiday in Romania surrounded by dragons. To be honest, I had quite my fill of dragons after that Hungarian Horntail."

Ron paled then looked down at the note longingly. Hermione could see him debating with himself, torn between what he should do as a friend and what he selfishly wanted to do.

"Well… I don't imagine we have to go," Ron finally took the high road. Not without a tone of regret and obvious reluctance, however. "I mean, if we explained to Mum…"

"No," Harry interrupted. "No, you guys don't get to see Charlie enough. You all ought to go. I won't let you cancel this vacation for me." Harry gave Ron a smile. "Go, Ron. I'll be fine. Don't worry, no problem."

Ron frowned. Hermione willed Ron to take up the gauntlet.

"Well, if you're sure…"

Harry nodded. "Definite. Have a good time and watch yourself, I can't abide by those dragons much."

Ron's shoulders slumped but he didn't fight. He sighed in defeat instead. "All right then. Well, I better owl Mum back and let her know that you won't be coming. She'll be disappointed, I know, she really does fret over you, Harry. Ginny'll be down-right gloomy."

Ron went upstairs, changed, then headed out of the common room to go to the owlery and get Pig. Hermione and Harry were left alone with only the loud cracks and pops in the fireplace to break the silence.

Hermione sat beside Harry and quaked inside. Her efforts seemed to have evaporated around her and Harry was back to doomed to that wretched family for the summer. She wanted to be furious with Ron but she couldn't very well expect his whole family to not see Charlie when the chance presented itself. Harry was right, the Weasleys didn't see much of Charlie, what with the oldest son living in Romania. Hermione was angry that she couldn't get angry.

Harry was subdued. He was resigned. He was back to his pre-holiday mental preparations. Hermione sighed in consternation.

Harry, without turned to look at her, cocked his head in query.

"Are you sure about this, Harry?"

Harry's mouth tightened. "Yeah, I am."

"Surely dragons couldn't be all _that_ bad."

Harry turned to look at her, and his eyes were unflinching while at the same time begged for understanding. "Your opinion tends to change after one has spit fire at you and tried to tear you limb for limb. I just… well, it may sound foolish but I know I'd just be waiting for another one to start in on me like that Horntail and I'd just as soon not spend all holiday waiting to be attacked. My chances are better at the Dursleys, I think." Harry laughed sardonically. "Less chance of dodgy nerves at the Dursleys."

Hermione wanted to cry or scream, she wasn't sure which, so she sat there and frowned.

Harry looked away and stood. "I'm turning in. Goodnight, Hermione."

Hermione watched Harry trudge up the stairs. Her mind worked furiously. After all of three seconds she jumped up from the couch and hurried up the girls' dorm. She dressed quickly then left the Gryffindor tower.

Dumbledore better still be awake.

* * *

"Come in."

Hermione hesitated only momentarily at the beckon from the other side of Dumbledore's office door. The knocker she had just used had wagged its tongue against her palm and Hermione wiped the slobber from her hand as she pushed her way into the headmaster's office. The portraits were all sleeping and it lent an air of almost tomb-like quiet to what would be the normal state of a muggle room. The headmaster was in a baby's breath blue night robe, standing behind his desk feeding Fawkes. He turned his head when she entered. "Ah, Miss Granger. You're about the castle particularly late, and I must commend your athleticism in evading Missus Norris and Filch at such an hour. Please, sit and have a lemon cake, to have made it here without detection must have worked up a dreadful appetite."

Hermione dutifully sat down and eyed the plate of lemon squares that had appeared on a table in front of her. She took one but rather than eat it she held it in her hand and watched Dumbledore.

The headmaster finished feeding his phoenix then turned to his guest. "Now, as headmaster I must chide you for being out of your house tower after curfew. And now that that's out of the way, what brings you here?" Dumbledore sat down at his desk and peered at Hermione over his half-moon glasses.

Hermione took a breath. She'd been so head-strong and sure when she left the tower… now her bravely seemed dwarfed by the headmaster's presence.

"Headmaster… it's about Harry."

"Ahh."

Hermione put the lemon square back. "Ron just got answer from his mum about Harry staying at the Burrow this summer."

"She didn't decline to take Harry in." Dumbledore's eyebrows rose in the beginning state of shock, or at the very least genuine surprise.

"No. Absolutely not. She said he could stay… thing is, sir, that the Weasleys are going to be spending half of the holiday in Romania visiting Ron's brother Charlie at the dragon lairs."

Dumbledore nodded and waited.

Hermione sighed in irritation. "And then when Harry hears this he decides he'd rather go back to the Dursleys than vacation at a dragon lair. He said something about putting up with the Dursleys being worth not having to put up with the dragons. Personally, I'd think dragons would be an improvement, but Harry was adamant."

Dumbledore nodded again. "I can see that flummoxes you."

"Well, yes sir. That family of his is rotten, you and I both know it. I'd think Harry would do anything to not have to go back there. I'd even think dragons would be a small price to pay."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers. "If I may point out, Miss Granger, you've never been pursued by a dragon."

"Of course I haven't, but still…"

"The concept of being hunted by a dragon and the experience of it are very different things. You'll find most who have been dragon prey find the memory quite… disturbing. It's not a reaction that can be rightly or quite succinctly put into written words. No, it doesn't surprise me that Harry would choose his less-than-loving family over the dragons right now. His unpleasant encounter with a dragon is very recent, and with a Hungarian Horntail no less… Don't think less of Harry for his reluctance to meet a dragon again so soon. The last time I tangled with a dragon it was eight years before I went near another one, and that was Norbert."

Hermione couldn't help but smile. "Well… I suppose. You're right that I can't speak to what it was like for Harry going head to head with that dragon. But still, because of that whole dragon thing he's opting to return to the Dursleys rather than spend the holiday with the Weasleys.

"Sir… I still feel strongly that Harry shouldn't have to go back there."

"Yes, I can see you do. What do you propose?"

With a jolt of determination, Hermione sat up and looked Dumbledore in the eye. "I propose Harry come home with me."

Dumbledore merely watched Hermione as if she were being graded.

"Of course he wouldn't be as comfortable at my house as the Burrow, as he's never been there before, but I could ask my parents and I'm sure, I'm almost _certain_, they'd say yes. I could owl my mum and dad tonight and beg them to let Harry come this summer if I have to. Would that work, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore did not answer right away. He ran his index finger through his beard and looked up at his sleeping portraits as though seeking their opinion. Finally, after an unbearable moment of silence, he answered. "I have considered that. In fact, the moment you told me Harry decided not to go with the Weasleys I've been turning the problem over in my head."

"Problem?"

"I'm afraid so. You see, at the Burrow Molly and Arthur are there to safeguard Harry. Magically protect him."

Hermione's heart sank. "Oh."

"Thus the problem. I have no doubt that your parents would be most courteous and gracious; your manner would suggest they're positively delightful muggles. But they are muggles. With Voldemort's return we can't know what is in the very near future. We must consider Harry's safety; there's nothing to say Voldemort won't try to attack Harry while he's away from the school."

Dumbledore stood and paced behind his desk. "That your family is muggle, however, also bears a distinct advantage. You're of no relation to Harry the way the Dursleys are, so the connection would not be obvious. You live in a muggle home in a muggle community… I would bet my favorite shower cap that neither Voldemort nor his followers would have the first clue how to use a 'telephone book'. While Harry would be vulnerable, he'd also have a measure of protection gained through the difficulty to locate him. I believe the muggle phrase is 'hiding in plain sight'?" Dumbledore tapped his chin thoughtfully. "There is still the problem of him being so defenseless should anything happen."

"Is there any way the ministry could lift the ban on underage magic? Just for me and Harry? Between the two of us, I know… well, I think we could manage to fend off any attackers."

"I'm afraid not. First, to do so we would have to inform the ministry of Harry's intended whereabouts, and to be frank we don't know where Voldemort's dormant supporters have ended up. I hate to say it, but we cannot completely trust the Ministry of Magic. Second, while I admire both Harry's skill as well as yours, particularly given your ages, you are both still students. I could not in good conscience leave you to fend for yourselves considering the possible dangers."

Just as Hermione was feeling hopeless Dumbledore stopped and his eyes twinkled meaningfully.

"But there may be a way…"

Hermione sat up alertly.

Dumbledore turned to Hermione. "Now, under any other circumstances my first inclination would be to have an Auror assigned to Harry. At present, however, that's not a wholly wise move. We've already addressed the questionable alliances within the ministry. And we can't get you and Harry special allowance for underage magic for the same reasons. But who is able to use magic without it registering with the ministry?"

Hermione thought furiously. She couldn't think of anyone who could use magic without the ministry getting wind of it. The ministry was strict about keeping and eye on people doing magic who shouldn't be or in ways they oughtn't to be. As she wracked her brain her eyes fell on the plate of lemon squares. A passage read in a book once leapt into her thoughts.

"House elves!" she exclaimed.

Dumbledore smiled.

"But no," Hermione shook her head. "Dobby used magic at Harry's house in third year and the ministry jumped down Harry's throat for it, thinking he did it."

"Yes… but Dobby was under the service of the Malfoys at the time and he was at the Durlseys without leave from his master to be there, and nor were his actions aimed to serve his master. That made his magic use illegal in house elf law. When a house elf performs illegal magic the ministry knows it. A house elf under command to perform magic would not register, nor would…"

"A free elf."

"Very good, Miss Granger. I trust I do not have to tell you how powerful house elf magic is?"

Hermione shook her head. She knew. The house elves were restrained only by their code of conduct toward service and wizard-kind. While they wielded magic effortlessly, they seldom chose to do so outside of service to their masters. They didn't have the ferocious drive to compete that would predispose them to seek equality with wizards and witches while they inherently had the magical ability to do so. Their lives were simple as slaves, and for their service they were cared for. Their inherently unassuming nature was the reason that free elves weren't monitored. They didn't do harm because it would complicate their lives, which they'd much prefer to avoid.

Hermione thought aloud, "Then, do you propose Dobby…"

"Gracious, no." Dumbledore's answer surprised Hermione. "Do not mistake me, I am fond of the vivacious elf himself, but he is… shall we say… obsessive? I don't know if you noticed, but Dobby has developed quite a fixation on Harry. I imagine he would be more of a nuisance as Harry's watcher than a help. We must also remember that Dobby served the Malfoys. While his intentions are good, the wizards from whom he learned his magic and its uses… well, no need to really speak to that, I should think.

"I do have an idea for an elf that might suit our purposes."

While Hermione sat watching, Dumbledore walked to his fireplace, grabbed a handful of floo powder, and tossed it into the flames. His expression became focused and intent, indication of tapping into the power of his concentration. The fire flared green, sputtered, then a small creature bounded out of the hearth.

Hermione blinked. It was a house elf. A house elf with globular green eyes and bat-like ears more erect than Dobby's. What threw Hermione was that this elf was wearing clothes. The magical creature was wearing a pair of smiley-face boxers, they covered its body knees to chest, and strings tied to handfuls of the elastic band served as suspenders. The elf looked around the room, looked at Hermione, then turned to Dumbledore.

"Master Albus! So long it's been!"

"Hello, Kimmy." Dumbledore knelt down beside the house elf and looked toward Hermione. "Hermione, this is Kimmy. Kimmy, Hermione Granger. Kimmy has served the Dumbledores for over ninety years."

Hermione couldn't quite believe it. "The Dumbledores have slaves?" She could not help the reproach in her voice.

Kimmy screwed up her face and scratched at her leg while Dumbledore chuckled. "Oh, Kimmy was set free a long time ago. She hasn't been owned for close to eighty years."

Hermione frowned in confusion.

Kimmy grunted. "Kimmy _likes_ working for Masters Albus and Aberforth! Kimmy stays because she loves them."

Dumbledore touched Kimmy's shoulder. "I must say without Kimmy's supervision my brother Aberforth and I might well have died of malnutrition when our dear mother passed."

Kimmy looked up at him in adoration and overwhelming compassion.

"These past few decades Kimmy's been looking after Aberforth. When he's there to let her, that is. Has Aber come back from his latest holiday?"

"Not yet, sir. He owled me these boxers two weeks ago." Kimmy proudly tugged on her boxer shorts, looked to Hermione, and boasted happily, "Kimmy does love boxer shorts."

Hermione smiled.

"Yes. We have tried to pay her wages for her service; the only currency she'll accept is to be paid in boxers. I'd hazard to guess she has the most impressive boxer collection in Britain." Dumledore turned to address Kimmy. "Kimmy, I wondered if I could impose on you for a great favor."

"Anything, Master Albus. What would you like Kimmy to do?"

Hermione sat quietly while Dumbledore explained Harry's predicament. She let her thoughts drift to the letter she was have to draft to her parents, how she would word her plea, when at last something new in the conversation recaptured Hermione's undivided attention.

"… so, Kimmy, I had hoped that you'd agree to go to the Grangers this summer holiday with Harry and Hermione and make sure Harry's safe."

Kimmy bounced on the balls of her bare feet, her big ears quivering and the boxer shorts shifting on the small body. "Oh! most certainly, Kimmy would be happy to."

Hermione found herself unexpectedly torn, vacillating between elated and filled with trepidation. She was sure she could convince her parents to let Harry stay, but a house elf? A house elf in a muggle home, in a muggle town, in her parents' kitchen?

Dumbledore rose and smiled warmly. "I can see you're wary, but you have nothing to fear from Kimmy's discretion around muggles. You see, Aberforth and I grew up near a muggle town… well, within a good afternoon's walking distance, really. We made quite an adventure of moving among the quaint non-magic folk when we were young, in fact. We thought the muggles were immensely amusing, endearingly so. So fond of our excursions were we that our mother made provisions for our activities around the muggles in the guise of Kimmy here. Would you please show Hermione your muggle cover, Kimmy?"

Kimmy beamed, crouched to place her hands on the floor, and before Hermione's eyes the house elf shrank, changed, and suddenly instead of the house elf there was a tan-colored Chihuahua. The bulging eyes and bat-like ears still looked remarkably like Kimmy, but they fit the breed of dog she's become so well that no one would suspect it was a house elf in disguise.

The implications struck Hermione. Harry could go anywhere and his protector would appear to be nothing more than his pet. No muggle would look twice at the little dog at Harry's side.

"That's brilliant, Kimmy!"

Kimmy gave a shake then transformed back, immediately rearranging her boxer overalls.

"Well, Miss Granger, Kimmy would seem to solve our dilemma. I assure you, she has interacted with muggles well enough to know how to behave so as not to upset them. A better-comported house elf you'd be hard-pressed to find. Now, if you can convince your parents to agree to letting Kimmy stay at your home this summer, I could certainly see my way clear to letting you take Harry back with you."

Hermione jumped up from her seat. "Oh, they will, sir! I'll make sure they do. Thank you, and thank you, Kimmy. This is wonderful. This will mean so much to Harry. I'm going to owl them straight away." With a grin and suddenly feeling invincible she dashed from the office and toward the owlery.


	6. Chapter 6

It was well past midnight before Hermione actually made it to the owlery. After leaving Dumbledore's office she'd rushed back to the common room, retrieved several sheaves of parchment and a quill, and took up at a table normally utilized for homework where she set about composing the letter she would send to her parents. She set herself the task of getting it finished and off that very night. She wouldn't let it sit another moment. Putting together the right way to approach her parents with the idea of a boy and a house elf staying with them over the summer had required more tact and skill than she'd originally anticipated. She didn't suspect her parents would be horribly opposed to Harry staying over; it was the house elf she wasn't sure about. For all their support toward Hermione and her witch status, they were still muggles and largely unacquainted with the magical world (to which house elves firmly belonged). Feeling guilty for it, but for Harry's sake not guilty enough to change her mind, she decided to omit the details on Harry's guardian. If Kimmy could remain in dog form then her parents need not be any the wiser. After all, they allowed her to have Crookshanks in the house, so a Chihuahua shouldn't be that different. After that slightly deceitful decision was made, writing the letter seemed to become a bit easier, but it still had to be just right. She couldn't abide by any letter that would fail to convince her parents to have Harry as a summer guest. It became a homework assignment, subject to the same exactness and perfection. She started several drafts that she scrapped and discarded; she began anew it seemed half a dozen times. Early in Hermione's effort, Ron had returned from owling his own mother and seen Hermione scribbling and contemplating feverishly. The look of sharp concentration on her face surely made Ron believe that its source was a textbook, for he gave an exaggerated yawn and dashed up the boys' dorm stairs before Hermione could catch him. Hermione had barely spared him a glance; she had a friend to rescue.

Finally, with Crookshanks coiling around her legs and hopping on to the table to swat at the jumping feather-end of her quill, she had her letter done. She didn't even look at the time, unconcerned, as she stashed her finished note, grabbed up her cloak, and headed out of the common room.

The owlery was eerie in the black of night. The occupants, normally so docile and calm during the day, were now uncommonly active and vocal. Hermione had never visited the owlery at night and would avoid it if possible in the future. The fast, stealthy whisper of feathers rushing past her face was enough to make anyone jumpy.

Hermione peered around the darkness uselessly a moment then pulled out her wand and cast _lumos_. There was a wave of indignant, angry hoots at the sudden light, dark bodies shifted and moved in a wall of avian complaint. A great many owls just fled the tower entirely, a crowd of birds making for the windows and door. Hermione ducked the mob and looked up. The light found a single patch of white in shadow near the ceiling and Hermione sighed in relief at the sight of Hedwig's back.

"Hedwig."

The snowy owl turned her head and looked down at Hermione. A dead rat, mangled and half-eaten, dangled from her beak.

"Eww… Hedwig, come down here, please."

Hedwig seemed to weigh the options, ruffled her feathers with a disgruntled shake at having to abandon her meal, then let the corpse drop to the ground twenty feet below and left her perch to fly down to Hermione. Hermione was startled when Hedwig came right at her (though Hermione couldn't imagine what else she could have expected the bird to do), and when she instinctively brought up an arm to shield her face Hedwig wrapped her feet around Hermione's forearm and landed cleanly on the girl's arm.

Hermione staggered at the unexpected weight but managed to keep from pitching Hedwig to the floor or ending up there herself. It felt horribly awkward and ungainly to have the owl on her arm. And she was surprisingly heavy. She couldn't fathom how Harry made it look so natural and effortless.

Hermione took Hedwig outside to the stone ledge, thankfully free of the fray of night raptors. She took a deep breath of clear air then opened her eyes to see Hedwig watching her intently. Her expression would almost seem to ask 'what did you expect in an owlery at this hour?'.

Hermione pushed the thought aside and moved closer to the ledge. Not so discreetly, she rested her arm supporting Hedwig on to the ledge. Her arm was tired from only holding Hedwig a few moments. Harry's bird clucked her beak, maybe offended or disappointed at Hermione's pitiful upper body strength, but stepped off Hermione's arm and on to the ledge. Then again she fixed the girl with the same expectant amber gaze.

Hermione pulled the letter to her parents from her pocket and faced Hedwig. She took a breath. "I didn't ask Harry if it would be all right to use you to send a letter, Hedwig.

"Harry was supposed to spend the summer with the Weasleys, but that fell through. I wrote my parents to ask them if he could come home with me. I hoped you'd take this to them as quickly as possible. I'd use a school owl, but I wanted to ask if you'd do it first, because you're much faster than they are."

Hedwig immediately stuck out her leg.

Hermione smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Hedwig." The bird stared at her, as though to say that she agreed for Harry's sake and it was pointless, almost insulting really, to thank her for something she would do in a heartbeat.

Hermione quickly tied the scroll to Hedwig's leg. As soon as it was secure the snowy owl took off with a powerful beat of wings and quickly disappeared into the night.

Hermione remained at the ledge a long time, staring into the darkness. She knew it was unrealistic to expect Hedwig to return so soon, but she couldn't seem to pry herself away from the hope that maybe Harry's bird could do it. She was still there when most of the school's owls began returning from their night of hunting.

* * *

Harry was the first one awake in his dorm room. He'd jerked out of a nightmare with his heart racing and lungs burning. He'd been back in the graveyard. He had been tied, prone on his back on the ground between tombstones, and Wormtail was there with his dagger. He'd said a few drops of Harry's blood weren't enough, and he'd proceeded to cut Harry, peeling strips of flesh free and wrapping them around a fetus-like creature in the grass as though Pettigrew meant to recreate his lord using Harry's skin like paper maché.

When Harry reoriented to his surroundings and realized he was in fact in his bed at Hogwarts, the bitter vice of fear wrapped around his chest turned into a drowning, sour ache. His shoulders slumped as he sat up in bed, his head drooped, and his bones throbbed. It was getting better, the marrow-deep pain from the Cruciatus. Hopefully, in a day, he could be distracted from noticing it in every waking moment. And in some of his sleeping moments. The sensation of the knife peeling parts of him away had been distressingly real.

Harry's stomach flipped. He'd already been distracted from it once, the only time since he'd been tortured that he'd honestly been able to not think about it. That first night, in this bed, with…

Harry shook sharply from his thoughts. It seemed scandalous to think on it for too long, to linger on details too closely. It made his head spin, made his skin tingle strangely, made his stomach lurch. It was just dangerous to go beyond glancing blows of recollection. That entire evening and night had been too much, too many senses and feelings and extremes, everything on the brink of overload. Harry had to disconnect, detach, or he was afraid he'd go a little mad. He was scared that he didn't know what he'd do if he actually addressed that night, that moment, that one reprieve in agony.

A look toward the window showed blackness, but a blue-black that bespoke of impending dawn.

Harry slowly extricated himself from his bed covers. He wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep before it was time to get up again; he might as well get up. The other boys were still sound asleep. Ron's snores were accompanied by the rhythmic croaks of Neville's frog Trevor to produce a truly hideous duet. Dean and Seamus were quiet sleepers, more moving lumps than people until they stirred. Neville slept like a puppy with occasional squeaking sounds, but at the time he was quiet.

Harry crept past his dorm-mates and padded lightly down the stone stairs to while away the long hours before the day.

When he reached the foot he froze.

He'd expected an empty common room at such an ungodly hour. Instead he saw Hermione. She was curled up on the couch asleep.

Unable to move, Harry stood a moment and watched her. A precursory twinge threatened to become that stomach lurch he tended to shy from. She looked peaceful, vulnerable, very purely Hermione when she didn't have to prove herself to anyone. It was a rare sight. The ever-present crinkle on her brow of complex thought was gone, leaving her expression relaxed and obscenely lovely.

Harry hadn't thought he wanted company, but he discovered he was glad Hermione was there.

He moved across the room and approached Hermione, bent to touch her shoulder to shake her awake, but at the last moment stopped. Somehow, just seeing her was enough to ease his mind. The vestiges of his nightmare were losing hold, and it seemed almost criminal to wake her when she looked so comfortable.

Harry sat down on the floor in front of the couch instead and watched her face, the way wild curls of chestnut hair fell in tendrils near her closed eyes, her cheeks the resting place for dark eyelashes and her lips slightly parted. Even at rest like this her hair was untamed. Harry could certainly commiserate with Hermione on the topic of unruly hair. Sleeping as she was, she looked so frail, and yet she was the strongest person he knew besides Dumbledore. When she set her mind to something nothing would stop Hermione Granger. He couldn't think of anyone who truly gave Hermione her due. She was more than incredible, and most would have the audacity to call her plain. She was far from it. She was unsung. Brilliant, but largely overlooked. People knew she was smart, but 'smart' was an inadequate way to describe her. Harry, at least, knew she was amazing, even if he couldn't tell her. How he could have made it through even his first year without her he didn't know. He and Ron both owed Hermione more than either could ever repay. Yet she never tried to collect. Hermione just gave of herself…

Harry's stomach jumped, letting him know his thoughts were straying into dangerous territory.

But it was true. Hermione had saved him in so many ways and he'd never really thanked her.

Hermione shifted, grumbled faintly under her breath, and opened her eyes. She didn't start to find Harry a mere foot from her, she simply watched him in return a pregnant moment. Then she blinked lazily. "What is it?" she asked in a thick, sleepy voice.

Harry's skin prickled. "I was just thinking."

Hermione stretched languidly. Harry's eyes swept the curve of her back when she arched.

Hermione resettled and sat up. "About what?" she asked, her voice much more normally pitched. She patted the cushion beside her and Harry moved off the floor to sit next to her. There was plenty of room on the couch for them to spread out, but Harry inexplicably found himself sitting right beside her, their sides brushing lightly. Hermione didn't seem to mind, because she didn't move away.

"What are you doing down here?" Harry asked. It was better than telling her what he'd really been thinking. It wasn't fit to be spoken aloud. Somehow, it had the feel of the forbidden.

Hermione hesitated and bit her lip. "Oh, um, I'll tell you later."

Harry looked askance at her. That kind of evasion she might pull with Ron, but she wasn't supposed to withhold things from him. Harry was paused by his own reaction. Since when? Had it always been that way? When did he start to expect her to confide in him more than Ron? But he did expect it, because Hermione _talked_ to Harry. It only then struck Harry how true that fact had always been, and how he'd taken it for granted until that very instant.

He was jolted from his thoughts when Hermione touched his right arm. The hairs at the nape of his neck tickled, but he didn't resist when Hermione gently took his arm in her lap and rotated his wrist to reveal the underside. He looked down at the fading pink of the healed knife-wound. He was too conflicted to really feel. He saw the evidence of what had happened, but it was made oddly distant by the way Hermione traced her fingertip over the mark.

When her finger neared his wrist his fingers curled of their own accord and Hermione stopped, perhaps thinking it was a silent indication of pain. Harry couldn't figure how to let her know it wasn't.

"Would you go spare if I asked how you were feeling?" Hermione asked gently.

Harry smiled. "No. I feel…" Harry stopped. The first thought that had come to mind as he sat there in the quiet of the early morning, alone with Hermione at his side in the common room, had been something close to 'comfortable'. But it seemed wrong to say that after what had happened. That shouldn't be the answer, but his first reaction had been to say that he felt kind of close to good. But the ache was still resonating dully in his muscles and bones, he still felt the edge of terror from seeing a friend killed before his eyes, he still felt the darkness that was Voldemort's magical connection to him like a sickness in his blood. He should answer that he felt dreadful.

But he didn't. Somehow, just sitting with Hermione, it went away. It faded to a background noise. She made things better, she made his crazy life mimic normal. And for Harry, anything that made him feel even an approximation of normal was a gift.

Hermione was watching him, obviously concerned about his inability to answer.

Harry frowned. He knew how he should feel, couldn't justify how he _did_ feel, was confused that how he should feel _was_ how he'd felt only a few minutes ago but no longer did, so he settled on an honest shrug. "I don't really know how I feel."

Hermione clearly didn't like his answer, probably because there wasn't much she could do to help if he didn't know, but she didn't press him. She gave an accepting nod and looked toward the fireplace.

Harry studied her profile as her eyes went out of focus and she got lost in her thoughts. He'd seen her do it countless times, but he'd never really watched the process flit across her face.

He was going to miss her this summer. Somehow, he knew he'd miss her this time more than he had in the past. Aside from the sordid details of him and Hermione together that he could not let himself dissect for some faceless danger he could not name, what he remembered about that first night after Voldemort's return was feeling like he might not make it to morning with his sanity intact. He'd honestly been afraid of breaking down. He'd felt like he was stretched threadbare, and at times he'd truly believed he'd lose his mind. He didn't know what would be left of Harry Potter come dawn. And then he'd come through the night and greeted the sunrise with a kind of security he'd never had before, because Hermione had suddenly, blindingly, become this source of power to him. She stood like a windbreak to the gales of madness, a sheltering stone in a raging river of fear and pain, an immovable figure to block the horrors rushing him. In a single night she became his anchor.

With the summer holidays only a day away, he acknowledged that in so short a time he'd clung to Hermione's strength. He began asking and needing half of what she'd always tried to give him before but that he'd never had the ability to claim. He took it now, he let her hover and defend and care for him, and he knew it wouldn't be easy for him to give up her attentions. He'd dressed his wounds in her presence, and he wasn't sure he could stand to have those injuries torn open again in order to push Hermione back to where he used to keep her.

The day in the hospital wing when she and Ron had come to tell him about the Burrow, Harry had just suddenly realized that Hermione had become more important to him than Ron was. It had surprised him, because for so long Ron had been his best friend, the first one he'd ever made, but looking at the two together it hit him that Hermione had displaced Ron. She meant more. He could lose Ron's friendship sooner and more easily than he could lose Hermione's.

That had left a strange, scared churning in his gut. Somehow it seemed like he was abandoning Ron, and he didn't want that to happen, but then Ron had started talking about wizard's chess and Quidditch and he'd looked at Hermione and just accepted it. Since _that night_, in a way, he'd felt a distance from Ron. He thought it might trace back to the beginning of the year when Ron hadn't spoken to him for months because he refused to believe that Harry hadn't put his name in the Goblet of Fire. Ron had accused him of lying, of deceiving his best friend, while Hermione had helped him through the tasks with steadfast devotion, being so very Hermione from the very start. Harry wondered if this now, this suddenly stronger bond to Hermione and weakening of his connection to Ron, was some backlash of that. Was he just choosing Hermione because she'd never doubted him? Was he that petty and vengeful?

He thought that he might be.

Even still, he'd never felt this kind of _necessity_ concerning Ron. He'd never _needed_ Ron the way he knew, deep down, he needed Hermione now. And that was unnerving. Harry didn't know what he was supposed to do.

"Harry?"

Harry blinked and returned his attention to her. She was looking at him and the orange firelight painted an amber line along the contours of her face. In her eyes he could almost make himself think she needed him as much as he needed her.

But he knew he was dreaming, trying to put something there that wasn't. Hermione didn't need, _couldn't_ need, not the way Harry did. Hermione was too strong for that.

"What is it?" Hermione queried. "You looked troubled." She reached out and took his hand. Harry looked down at their hands, the way her fingers so easily and naturally slid between his. His stomach fluttered again, and it made him glad breakfast was hours away. The way she made touch seem so pleasant and desired had been a quandary for him since second year.

"No one but you ever really touches me," he said before he could stop the words.

Hermione's eyes widened, as though accused of cheating on a test, and she gave a guilty, "Oh," and moved to pull her hand out of his. She clearly took his comment as being chastised.

"No," Harry said, a little too quickly and strongly, and he held her hand tightly to stop her from drawing away. She stopped tugging and looked warily at him. "I… I didn't mean that in a bad way. I just… noticed."

"Does it… bother you?" she asked in a small voice.

Harry frowned and shook his head. "It bothers me when other people do. I guess I don't know how to be touched. The Dursleys…" Harry broke off and Hermione's fingers squeezed his in understanding. "I learned to not like it.

"But I like it when it's you. I've never minded you touching me. And you know, I never… well, I don't really like Ron touching me, either… never have, and I know that's awful but it's true. Is that weird?"

"No. When you think about it, I mean, it really makes a lot of sense." Hermione's voice was pained on his behalf. She looked down nervously, bit her lip, then glanced carefully up at him through her lashes. "But… you don't mind me?"

Harry shook his head again.

"You remember in second year?" he asked, and Hermione gave a half-nod as she waited for clarification on which part of second year they were discussing.

"You're the first person I can remember ever hugging me." Harry met her eyes and did not waver. Something was dancing in her eyes, more than reflections from the firelight, and he knew it was important, even if he didn't know quite exactly how. "I've always remembered that."

Hermione's eyes glistened in sharp sympathy and undeniable affection. "Oh, Harry," she croaked and pulled her hand out of his to throw her arms around his neck. Harry startled, his stomach lurched mightily, and a lump lodged in his throat. She pressed against him, her arms circled his neck and rested against his shoulders, her hair tickled his face. She smelled really good. Harry trembled. Hermione tightened her hold on him, and Harry snaked his arms around her body to hug her back. Unknown feelings surged like ocean waves in his bloodstream, and he didn't understand them and he was afraid and it made his heart pound, but he trusted Hermione to keep him safe. She wouldn't let him drown; he trusted her to save him. He didn't need to understand because Hermione would figure it out, she always did.

Maybe someday she'd tell him why he felt so uncomfortable and awkward when other people touched him but why it felt so good when she hugged him.

Hermione pulled away but not completely. She kept her arms around him, let her interlocked fingers loop around Harry's neck, but drew back enough to rest her head on his shoulder. Harry didn't know if he was supposed to let go of her or not. He knew he didn't particularly want to. Uncertain but willing to take the chance, he kept his arms where they were, looped around her back with their weight drawing her faintly closer, and he waited expectantly for Hermione to tell him off. For a few seconds he didn't breathe in tense readiness to pull away at her scolding. But Hermione didn't tell him to back away or take his hands off her. To the contrary, she actually shifted closer until they were flush against each other, pressed quite tightly side to side, but it made her hold and his more comfortable. Only then did Harry let out the breath he'd been holding and let himself relax. Hermione sighed too, resettled her head on his shoulder, and Harry swallowed thickly. She fit really nicely against his side, he thought. His stomach was in knots and his heartbeat was drumming madly, but he was happy. This made him feel good.

Hermione spoke softly, and he could hear a smile in her voice. "You shouldn't have told me that, Harry." Harry stiffened in the first flickers of fear that completely overrode any confusion that might have come from hearing the tone of her voice mismatch with her actual words. But Hermione wasn't moving away or swatting at his arms. She stayed there, her head on his shoulder, and continued to let him hold her. She continued lowly, "There have been so many times I've wanted to hug you, because you looked like you needed it or because I did, and I stopped myself because I thought you wouldn't like me just hugging you like that. But now I don't know if I'll be able to stop anymore."

Harry found himself smiling and feeling slightly light-headed. Relief was almost palpable, and it was accompanied by one of those new, unidentified emotions that hit him in the stomach. "Well, you can. I won't mind."

Hermione squeezed him tighter and Harry would have been hard-pressed to recall the nightmare that had woken him only moments ago.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I don't mean to give away anything about where this story is going, but many readers seem to have certain preconceptions toward this fic, and I really feel a little fair warning is in order. For those who are frustrated that it's slow-paced… best bail now. While there is action later in the story, that is not truly the central point of this story. I set out to write the most honest Harry/Hermione relationship I could. That gets the overwhelming focus.

* * *

As she looked around the Great Hall, it occurred to Hermione with a kind of bitter disgust that end of term had a strange effect on students. It was a time of merry anticipation, relief that the term was done, that summer holidays were about to begin, that freedom from homework and exams was a hair's breadth away. It had a strange confundus effect on the students at Hogwarts. The Great Hall was an almost perversely normal cacophony of children's voices as they tucked in to their last dinner feast. Earlier that evening they'd bid farewell to the Beauxbatons and Durmstrangs, and it was as though with them departed the dark reality of late. The students at Hogwarts were letting themselves pretend nothing was wrong. They knew one of their own had died, that a great danger had returned to their lives, that nothing would be the same, but on the last evening they would be at Hogwarts students seem to be able to forget. It was consciously pushing the ugly from their minds as they talked with their friends. Everyone would go home tomorrow morning; there was no time to remember the unpleasant truths. They ignored it, even when it was sitting right in front of them.

It meant they made it a point to ignore Harry. He was a reminder, a signpost of the dangers that awaited them all, so they didn't look. Harry might as well have been under his invisibility cloak.

He was fine with that. He quietly ate his dinner as he sat sandwiched between Hermione and Ron. Ron was talking to Fred, George, and Ginny, who had taken seats near them at the same table to talk about their impending vacation to Romania. Even they were turning their backs on Voldemort. They were even falling into the same habit as everyone else of ignoring Harry. There had been a few awkward, stilted attempts, but they were so fake that Hermione fumed silently. Ginny had tried twice to convince Harry to change his mind about coming along with the Weasleys, and the twins had stated that Ron would be an insufferable prat all summer without Harry there to keep him in line, but after that they kind of just stopped seeing Harry. They were there with him but their gazes were deliberately fixed on each other, on Hermione beyond… somehow their eyes kept skipping over Harry.

Hermione sat close to Harry's left side. Possessively, protectively close. Where everyone else forgot to remember Harry, Hermione couldn't seem to help noticing every minute detail. She felt almost an obligation to fill the void so many ignoble so-called friends had left at his last feast of term.

Laughter and high-spirited voices swirled around their pocket of solemn silence.

Hermione held it against every last one of them for being duped. For being naïve, because this was serious, people were going to die, and they were all faking joviality. She wanted to scream at them, for them, make them understand and stop acting like it was just another year gone by. But it was everyone; only she and Harry seemed cognizant of the universe outside of the Great Hall.

Harry glanced at her occasionally over his plate of barely-touched food. Every time he did the look in his eyes made Hermione want to drag him away. Take him somewhere where the tense lines of his face would ease and his shoulders wouldn't slump.

Each time it made Hermione look up toward the windows forlornly. Until she got word from her parents, she couldn't take him anywhere. They'd have to go to Hogsmeade Station tomorrow to head home; Hermione didn't want to think that she might have to let Harry go to the Dursleys.

As though Hermione's longing and yearning had summoned her, Hedwig suddenly soared through an open window and into the Great Hall.

Hermione sat up abruptly and eagerly, her eyes locked on the snowy owl. Harry followed her gaze and watched Hedwig come to a hurried landing in front of Hermione's plate. He looked a little baffled when Hedwig did not bring the letter to him.

Hermione could have picked up the bird and hugged her. Had Hedwig not looked so thoroughly exhausted, she may have anyway. As it was, Hermione dove to take the muggle envelope from Hedwig's beak. "Thank you, Hedwig! I was starting to worry, I should have known you'd come through. Here," Hermione pushed the entirety of her remaining dinner toward the owl, and Hedwig began to gratefully gulp down slabs of roast beef and clumps of gravy-laden potatoes.

Hermione opened the letter and quickly read the contents.

Joy shot through her as she beamed and jumped to her feet without realizing she'd moved.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked at him and she wanted to whoop. Instead she grabbed Harry's arm and dragged him toward the hall.

"Hey, what's going on? Wait for me!" Ron's voice was a background twitter. Hermione didn't spare him a thought.

When she was out in the hall she dropped Harry's arm and spun to face him with a huge grin. He was watching her uncertainly. Ron staggered up at Harry's side, a mouthful of food still pouched in his right cheek.

Hermione looked down at the letter again, as though to make sure she hadn't imagined it in her ardent hope.

"Oo's 'at fum?" Ron asked around his mouthful.

"My Mum and Dad," Hermione replied then looked directly at Harry. He was growing wary in defense against the unknown.

"Harry," Hermione breathed, "when you decided to go back to the Dursleys this summer I borrowed Hedwig and sent a letter to my parents. I asked if you could come home with me for the summer, and they said yes!"

Harry's expression went from confused to startled.

Ron swallowed, thumped Harry on the back, and barked, "Oiy! That's great! Right, Harry?"

Harry's brow furrowed slightly. "You sure?" he asked Hermione, his voice low and halting.

Hermione nodded vigorously. "I already cleared it with Dumbledore." When Harry continued to look uncertain, Hermione's smile fell. "You will come, won't you?" It hadn't occurred to her before then that he might decline.

Harry took in a slow breath and held it.

"Course he will," Ron said. "I mean, sure, won't be as much fun as the Burrow, I'm sure it'll be lots of books and you'll probably be made to do _homework_, but still, that's an improvement over the Dursleys, isn't it?"

Hermione was surprised when Ron's comment hurt. No, there wouldn't be wizard's chess or Quidditch or degnoming gardens at her house, but she'd never thought of it the way Ron did. Like it was a shoddy second to the Weasley home.

She looked hesitantly at Harry. What if he thought that, too? He was watching her closely, guardedly. Hermione felt her spirits take a nose-dive. She'd been so certain that once she convinced the headmaster and her parents that the battle would end there. She didn't think she might have to win Harry to the idea, too. The thought that she might have to tasted a lot like despair.

Then, almost imperceptibly, Harry's expression softened. His mouth hinted at a smile, his eyes grew warm, his posture eased. Hermione held her breath.

"I'd really like that," Harry answered softly.

Hermione squealed. Without thought, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Harry, surprised, chuckled and hugged her back. Hermione was finding herself one of the despicable pretenders, because Voldemort wasn't on her mind right then.

It seemed a protracted minute before Hermione let Harry go and stepped back. He was smiling at her. He looked leagues better than just ten minutes ago when he'd been doomed to the Dursleys. A strange light glimmered in his eyes, and it was obviously relief and appreciation but also something else, a mysterious addition Hermione honestly couldn't place.

Ron was looking queerly between Harry and Hermione.

Hermione clutched the letter like someone would snatch it, and its promise, from her hands. Now she couldn't wait for morning.

* * *

Children with trolleys and waving parents packed the platform at King's Cross Train Station. So well timed and carefully observed were the emergences of kids with suitcases from the stone wall between platforms nine and ten that often it seemed children just appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly there would be four or five more kids pushing their belongings around than had been there moments before, but no one thought a great deal of it. It was easy to not notice where children came from, nor to where they disappeared. They were to be tolerated, chided when they got in the way, but otherwise left to their parents. Most had no time or business to bother with the young.

Miranda Granger was scanning the faces that seemed to simply appear around platforms nine and ten. Her husband at her side kept watch, too, for their returning daughter.

"Oh, Jake, there she is," Miranda said with a touch on her husband's arm. Jake turned and immediately found his daughter in the crowd. It was hard to miss that mess of hair. This time, however, another blinding beacon was the huge grin on her face as the girl made her way through the throng of passengers toward her parents. She seemed to detach from a gathering of redheads as she waded through the crowd. Jake couldn't help but smile at the sight of his daughter. He hadn't seen her look that happy in a long time.

As she neared, her trolley weighed down with her trunk and the cat-carrier, Jake let his attention move to the boy following after Hermione.

So that would be Harry. Jake knew only a little of him; Hermione really spoke with her mother more about the friends she had at school than to him. Jake knew that Harry was one of Hermione's best friends, and that he was some manner of celebrity in the world of magic, but more than that he really knew nothing.

As the two kids drew nearer, Jake gave the boy an appraising look (that is, once his attention could be pried from the caged, eye-catching snow-white owl atop the boy's trunk). He looked normal enough. Maybe a little skinnier than Jake would expect from a child celebrity. Definitely with wilder hair than he thought a public persona would have tolerated. He didn't really radiate that flaunting air of entitlement Jake had honestly expected, either. If this kid was a star, he'd have thought the boy would have quite a big head about it. He'd envisioned a strut at the very least. But the kid was following Hermione quietly, demurely, almost reticently. Shy seemed more the right word than arrogant.

Jake wished he'd paid more attention when Hermione talked about her friends, to have a better idea what strings would follow this boy to their house.

Hermione stopped before her parents, rounded her trolley, and rushed to Miranda and gave her a hug.

"Hi, sweetheart!" Miranda returned Hermione's embrace.

Hermione disentangled to engulf Jake similarly. For the time being, Jake let drop his curiosity about this Harry Potter fellow. He hadn't seen his girl in months.

"Gracious, Hermione!" Jake stepped back and put his hands on his daughter's shoulders, holding her at arm's length. He goggled. "Miranda," he glanced at his wife. "What on earth happened to the _girl_ we sent to school at start of term?"

Hermione's brow crinkled adorably as she silently questioned his words.

Miranda smirked teasingly. "I don't know, dear. Maybe we should speak with the station master and find out who this woman is they brought back to us."

Hermione blushed and playfully slapped her father's hands away. "Oh, really, you two." Hermione tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture from her earliest days. She cleared her throat and turned to the boy who'd accompanied her. "Harry, these are my parents, Miranda and Jake Granger. Mum, Dad, Harry Potter."

Jake turned his eyes again to Harry. In the guise of formal introduction, he took a moment to more closely study the boy.

He was thin, but Jake thought a great deal of that might be the effect from his clothes. They were tatty and much too large for the boy's frame. What struck Jake, though, were his eyes. When Harry looked up at Jake they met each other's eyes, and it wasn't the gaze of a child. There was sadness there, sober reserve, steady intensity that didn't have anything to do with glee to be off for summer holidays. For a second, Jake thought he was facing someone far older than fourteen.

"Hello," Harry said.

Miranda was on the ball while Jake was watching. "Hello, Harry. It's wonderful to finally meet you. Hermione talks about you all the time."

"Mum."

"Oh, please, Hermione, you do." Miranda smiled kindly at Harry. "So I understand you'll be staying with us this summer?"

Harry paused for a split second, his gaze shot pointedly to Jake, then the flash point passed and he nodded at Miranda. "Yes, ma'am. I mean, if that's all right."

"Of course it is. Frankly, we were only too happy to have you over. We've never seen our Hermione so excited about having a friend come to the house before; how could we say no?" Miranda ran an errant hand over Hermione's bushy hair, so casual and maternal a gesture, and something in Harry's face twinged. "Now, I expect we'll just need to sort the details out with your aunt and uncle, is it?"

Jake watched a dramatic shift take place. Hermione's expression suddenly became worried and grave. She looked quickly and intently at Harry. The boy looked back at Hermione, his face tense. Jake frowned.

"Why don't you let me speak to them," Jake volunteered. Harry's eyes turned up slowly to Jake and the boy seemed to measure Jake. It was disconcerting. He'd never been measured like that by a child. By other adults, but not a boy.

"Sounds good," Miranda said. "Come along, Hermione, we'll take your and Harry's things to the car while the boys tend to the arrangements with Harry's family."

Hermione balked a moment. She clearly didn't want to part from Harry, didn't want to leave him alone to this task. Jake couldn't understand why, but he was fairly sure he didn't like what it suggested.

The girls left, both pushing the trolleys, and Harry stood looking up at Jake. Again he was taken aback by the distance in his stare. 'And I always thought Hermione was serious,' Jake thought.

"Well then, where are your aunt and uncle?"

Harry sighed and looked around the train station. He stopped, scowled, and gave a half-nod. "That's them."

Jake turned and saw the large, mustachioed man standing beside a thin, severe looking woman. They were perhaps the grumpiest faces amid the several happy reunions. The two were watching Harry with a seething, spiteful glower that gave Jake pause. Things went from tense to tenser.

"Right then, come on."

Harry led Jake toward the couple without making a sound. His shoulders were tight, rigid and uncomfortable to look at, right to the moment he stopped before the scowling pair and said, "Hullo."

The man narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Well, boy, what have you done with your things? I don't want to be all day waiting on you."

Jake stepped in automatically. "Hello, I'm Jake Granger. You must be Harry's aunt and uncle."

The fat man sniffed, eyed Jake's extended hand suspiciously, then shook it. "Vernon Dursley." He ticked his head toward his wife. "Petunia."

Jake smiled. "Pleasure."

Vernon stared blankly at Jake. "Was there something you wanted, mister?"

Jake had to exert effort to keep smiling. "Oh, well, seems our children here conspired against us." To keep the mood light, Jake laid his hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry stiffened. Jake, a little thrown, immediately removed his hand. "You see, my daughter is a friend of Harry's from school."

Vernon and Petunia drew back.

"And a few days ago we got a letter from Hermione, that's our daughter, asking if Harry here could stay the summer with us. Naturally, we'd be delighted to have him over. If that's all right with you, of course."

Vernon did not answer for a long while. He looked between Jake and Harry with a loathsome sneer.

It was Petunia who finally broke the silence. "Oh, let him go, Vernon. Will spare us having to put up with him."

Vernon grunted. "Fine, take him." He snorted then looked snidely at Jake. "Guess if your daughter's one of _them_ too you won't mind this freak underfoot."

Jake's smile dropped completely.

Harry was so tense it was a wonder he wasn't shaking.

"Oh!" Petunia gasped.

All eyes followed hers to the baggy legs of Harry's pants. A Chihuahua was pawing demandingly at Harry's leg. When all attention was on it, the dog stopped and stared up at Harry.

"Good bye, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon," and with that Harry turned and stalked off. The dog bounded after him, keeping close to his side.

"Good day," Jake said without a trace of a smile. He turned and moved after Harry.

Jake caught up with Harry outside the train station. He was standing to the side of the entrance, leaning against the façade with his hands in his pockets and the Chihuahua lying at his feet.

Jake approached the boy. "Harry?"

Harry looked sideways at him. He frowned, scuffed the pavement with the toe of his worn and ratty trainer, then said, "I'm sorry about them."

"Your aunt and uncle?"

Harry nodded.

Jake couldn't pretend he didn't know why Harry was apologizing.

"Well, we can't choose our relatives, can we?" Jake tried to brush off the encounter lightly.

"No." After a moment Harry pushed off the wall and turned to squarely face Jake. Again, that flare of something far beyond a boy in his bespectacled blue eyes.

"Mister Granger…" he stopped, considered, then continued. "Did Hermione tell you I'm dangerous?"

Jake blinked.

Harry was unfazed. He watched Jake intently.

Jake lowered his voice. "What do you mean by 'dangerous'?"

Harry's stony stance faltered as a grief, a pain very childlike, rocked his frame. He briefly looked away then back. "I mean there are very dangerous people who want me dead. I can't come back to your home with you until you understand that. If you don't want me there, I understand."

Jake couldn't believe what he was hearing. The kid was serious, unwavering, and Jake was shocked by that. Why on earth would anyone want to kill a child, this boy?

"Well…" Jake hesitated. "I appreciate your candor, Harry." Jake turned his eyes from Harry, looked out over the parking lot, and caught sight of Hermione and Miranda wrestling the trunks and pet-carriers into the back of the car. He watched his daughter and remembered her letter, her impassioned words. He'd never felt that kind of fire in his daughter outside of schoolwork. It was a kind of zest and zeal for the world outside of academia he'd always longed to see Hermione experience. It was impossible to snuff.

Jake looked back at Harry. The boy was waiting, not even nervously, almost in resignation. As though he was certain he'd be sent away, like it was the only reasonable thing to be done. And Jake wondered, if he expected to be turned away, where did he expect to go? He'd already bid his aunt and uncle good bye. He didn't look like he was the type to go crawling back for a place to stay after the way he'd stormed off. And he didn't look concerned about it, either.

And even though this was a boy, merely fourteen and couldn't possibly have enemies like he said he did, Jake found he believed him enough about this 'danger' to take him seriously.

"Harry… I'll be honest with you; that you say it's dangerous to have you around does concern me." Jake glanced back toward the car. He saw Hermione turn and look directly at them. Her eyes settled on Harry. 'Expectant' didn't even begin to encompass everything that translated in his little girl's face. "But you're the first friend Hermione's ever asked to bring over to the house. I don't know if she ever told you, but before Hogwarts she didn't really have friends. I know she's really excited about you staying with us this summer. I won't take that from her."

Harry lowered his gaze.

"And she said that the headmaster of your school approved you staying with us." Surely the threat could not be so prominent if the headmaster of a great witchcraft and wizardry school would permit these accommodations.

"Yeah, he did. With a little extra protection." Harry looked down at the pint-sized dog. Jake, perplexed, looked at the green-eyed Chihuahua in confusion. When the dog met his gaze and winked understanding flared.

"Oh, I see. A 'special dog'."

Harry smirked. "Something like that."

"Well then, even better, right?"

Harry sighed. "I just… I couldn't… I had to make sure you knew."

Jake honestly, sincerely did not know what to make of Harry. When Hermione had spoken of him, her friend from Hogwarts, he'd expected a kid not unlike Hermione. Probably not as smart, of course, but more or less a kid. Jake had expected a boy like any other (save the magic). This was not what he'd expected. There was something about Harry that Jake couldn't name. But it was there, and it made him different.

As he stood there trying to comprehend this boy, Jake's internal idea of Hermione's world shifted fundamentally. He shied from the vertigo. The parking lot was not the place to pick that fallacy apart.

"Come on, Harry. Let's go."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I dare not let another chapter go by without giving certain people the credit justly due them. Many thanks to my beta, Sil, a Ron/Hermione fan who's put up with all my Harmony to proof this story. And as always, to Sierra Phoenix, my co-webmistress, without whom no one would get to read my fanfic.

* * *

Harry hadn't expected to feel so out of place with the Grangers. They'd been pleasant when he finally met them at the train station, but still there was an awkwardness. He didn't know how to act around them. It wasn't nearly as strange with the Weasleys… but then, they knew who he was. Harry never had any doubts that Ron and his family fully understood the dangers associated with being in Harry Potter's company. They knew the risks, they realized the threat. Harry looked at Hermione's parents and was certain they didn't. How much could a muggle know?

Harry sat in the back seat of the comfortable four-door car as they skirted London proper. Jake was driving and giving an occasional laugh and witty comment while his wife regaled Hermione with stories from home while their daughter was away. Hermione laughed in all the right places and it would have seemed so normal, but every so often Hermione looked at him and there was the shadow in her eyes. The shade of understanding. She was laughing through the veil of Cedric's death, of Voldemort's return, of Harry's torture at the dark wizard's hands, burdened with this responsibility she had single-handedly taken on when it came to her best friend. Harry was sure that every other year Hermione had been bursting with stories from her school year. He was certain that this too-casual avoidance of the topic was abnormal. Harry felt it was his fault.

He'd tried to warn Hermione's father. He couldn't go into their home, endanger Hermione, without their knowledge. Because they were muggles and surely they simply couldn't know.

And there, with Jake Granger, Harry felt an inexplicable uneasiness. Why did Jake intimidate him? He'd been just as pleasant as Miranda, the only hint of discourtesy was when he spoke to Vernon and Petunia, and that didn't cause one to lose favor in Harry's estimations. It made no sense that Harry would feel jumpy around Hermione's dad. But he did. Jake looked at him and something in Harry tightened.

Harry put it down to a very trying, difficult year wracking his nerves.

Harry turned his eyes down to the floorboard where Kimmy was curled next to his feet. She returned his gaze a moment then rested her chin atop his shoe. Jake and Miranda's voices were a background mumble, voices of unsuspecting, content, normal people. Harry felt like the worst kind of intruder. He didn't belong here, he had no place.

He blinked and looked up when, during the lull while her parents conversed, Hermione slipped her hand into Harry's. He glanced at her face, met her eyes, and when she smiled some of the raging disquiet and discomfort slipped away. Something in him wanted to draw her closer, pull her tight against him as they'd sat in the common room that night. He believed that somehow the amount of contact would displace a proportional amount of his unease. If she'd hug him it might be okay.

"Here we are, kids," Jake's voice broke into Harry's thoughts and he pulled his eyes from Hermione's face to look out the window.

They had pulled into the drive of a cozy suburban home. It was larger than the Durlseys' house on Privet drive, with a bigger yard and more space between neighbors. It looked far more inviting than the little abode of his aunt and uncle had ever looked, and for that very reason it scared him.

Hermione took her hand from Harry's and opened her door.

The knot of discomfort in Harry's chest swelled again. In his second's pause he was the last to leave the car.

Kimmy bounded out of the car and trotted off. One would think it was the errant meanderings of a dog looking for a place to squat, but Harry noted that Kimmy was very exactly walking the perimeter of the yard, turning at a ninety degree angle at the corner of the property, and disappearing behind the house.

"Harry," Jake's voice called. It was just Harry's name, with only a very slight tone of command, but it made Harry turn at once. The Grangers were pulling trunks and pet carriers from the back seat. Jake, at that moment, was holding Hedwig's cage up and gestured between it and Harry.

Harry moved to the family's side and took the cage of his owl. Hedwig blinked through the bars at him and Harry inhaled on the cusp of a question. But he wasn't sure if he had right to ask. He stared down piteously at his imprisoned beloved bird and burned to ask.

"That's a beautiful owl," Miranda said.

"Her name's Hedwig," said Hermione.

Harry looked cautiously up at Miranda. "Missus Granger… do you think, I mean, would it be all right to let her out of her cage? Just now and then?"

Miranda shrugged. "Oh, well, I don't see the harm. I mean, I suppose like Crookshanks she's, um…" Miranda smiled as though in a joke while trying to be delicate, "well, more mindful not to make a mess than regular animals?"

Harry nodded. "She's well-behaved. I'd just like it if she didn't have to spend all summer caged."

"Well, I don't have a problem with that. Do you, Jake?"

Harry looked imploringly to Jake.

Jake scratched his ear and gave a shrug. "Fine by me."

Harry sighed in relief and looked down to Hedwig. He lowered his voice to a gentle near-whisper. "Hear that, Hedwig? You'll get to fly this summer."

Hedwig clicked her beak and puffed out her feathers.

"Well, come on, let's get all this luggage inside and I'll start lunch," Miranda said as she began to drag Hermione's trunk. Harry moved to grab his but Jake got to it first. That left Harry to tend to Hedwig and Hermione toting Crookshanks's carrying case. Kimmy showed up just as they reached the door and waited patiently to be let in with the rest of them.

The décor inside surprised Harry in the sense that it didn't remind him of the Dursleys. He was certain that one muggle home would favor another, but where there was a cold, impersonal, unnaturally perfect cleanliness to Petunia's house, there was comfort in the Grangers'. It wasn't messy, but it looked lived-in. It looked like a home where people put up their feet and tossed of their jackets just inside the front door.

Hermione set the pet carrier on the floor and opened the door. Crookshanks hurried out as though every second inside was a greater insult. He flicked his tail to reestablish his feline aplomb then wandered off haughtily.

Harry paused, looked once in question in the direction of Jake and Miranda, and warily unlocked Hedwig's cage. When neither Jake nor Miranda scolded him he reached inside. Hedwig stepped on to his forearm, protected by the material of Harry's jacket, and let Harry gently pull her free of her cage. Harry transferred the bird to his shoulder and Hedwig flapped her wings once and settled comfortably on her master's shoulder. It seemed just the fact she was not surrounded by bars was an immense improvement.

Jake disappeared down the hall dragging Hermione's trunk.

Miranda glanced at Harry with the owl perched on his shoulder and chuckled. "You know, we're used to letters from Hogwarts that Hermione sends us during term coming with those smaller brown owls. We were a bit startled by Hedwig when she showed up at our window one night while we were watching the telly."

The elegant white bird was definitely a cut above the screech and barn owls generally available to students.

Jake returned empty-handed and pronounced, "I'll get us all some drinks. Harry, what would you like?"

"Oh, um…" Harry faltered.

Hermione piped in. "We have lemonade; Dad loves it."

"That'll be good, lemonade," Harry said.

"I'll be along directly to start lunch, Jake. Hermione, why don't you show Harry where he'll be staying?"

Hermione nodded. Harry, mindful of Hedwig on his shoulder, bent down and grabbed the handle of his trunk and followed Hermione into the hall. She gave a truncated tour on their way. "The first door on the left is to Dad's study. There on the right is the loo. That one's my room, on the left there, on the right is my parents' bedroom, and this," Hermione turned to the last door on the left, "this is the guest room. You'll be staying here." Hermione pushed her way in and Harry followed.

The room was nearly twice as big as his bedroom at four Privet Drive. It had the neutral look of a guest room, neither indicative of gender nor family relationship, but it was still so disturbingly warm and welcoming that Harry was given pause. Hermione sat down on the end of the queen-sized bed and watched Harry. Away from her parents her façade dropped, her smile was more in the back of her eyes than on her mouth, the air about her was more serious than the care-free and happy front she'd been showing her parents. Harry finally saw his Hermione from Hogwarts again.

Harry stepped further into the room and dropped his trunk on the floor. A dresser sat perpendicular to a curtained window and Harry set Hedwig's cage on the corner. He pulled the curtains of the window and pinned them open. Outside was a garden, not immaculate and precise like Petunia's but lovingly tended and, for that, better. A modest-sized in-ground pool, ringed by deck furniture, was situated to the right of the garden. A privacy fence cordoned off the Grangers' property, and while it was nothing extravagant the size of the back yard would have made Uncle Vernon purple with jealousy.

Harry opened the window and reached up for Hedwig, transferring her to the windowsill. The bird trilled contently at the breeze in her face, and Harry knew she was looking forward to night when she could hunt. For now, the owl was happy to sit and doze in the sunlight.

Harry finally turned to Hermione. She sat back, her arms bracing her on the mattress as she looked closely at him, and something in it made Harry swallow and his insides squirm.

"You all right, Harry?" she asked gently, a crinkle of concern on her brow and pulling at the corners of her mouth.

Harry couldn't lie, not to her, not anymore. "Dunno."

Hermione sat up, now even more serious, and waited in worry.

Harry looked around the room. This was Hermione's home, his best friend as much and more so than Ron, so why wasn't he as relaxed here as he was at the Burrow? What made him feel like a disease in their house? He felt like the adopted brother with Ron and his family. Now he felt like the stranger, the burglar that forgot to sneak out after the burgle and decided to stay for dinner.

Hermione stood and it jarred Harry from his thoughts as he looked up at her. She cocked her head in silent question.

Harry leaned back to perch carefully on the dresser. It felt intrusive to even touch anything. He looked down at his hands and tried to think of words for what he felt. "Maybe… well, at Ron's… there's so many people that it's easy to be there and get lost. Here… I stand out." Harry smirked feebly and looked fleetingly at her. "And I usually don't stand out in a good way."

Hermione frowned and walked up to him. She stopped directly in front of him and Harry slowly brought his eyes up to meet hers. He expected bossy, domineering Hermione from the stance of her body, but when he reached her face there was only compassion and worry.

Something in her eyes told him to stand and he took his weight off the dresser and stood upright. It brought them closer together, and it made him half an inch taller than she.

Hermione looked up into his face a moment then, without asking, calmly stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his neck. And Harry was finally getting that hug he knew he had needed since the car.

Harry brought his arms up around her and held her snugly. It was easier every time. It was easy now. What was beyond the ease of this embrace? How could it possibly feel better, more right, more therapeutic, next time? Harry rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. Hermione was a powerful witch, but her greatest magic was how she could do this to him. Nothing in his life had ever made him feel like everything would be okay… except when Hermione held him.

The sound of the door opening surprised them both, but not in time to jump apart before Miranda poked her head inside and saw them.

"Oh," surprise registered as she saw her daughter and Harry drop their arms from each other and move apart. For a second there was blank confusion, then Miranda's expression barely hardened. Harry darted a look at Hermione. He was astounded at what he saw. Hermione's cheeks were slightly pink, but that was the only indication of any embarrassment or guilt. Hermione was standing proudly beside Harry, chin up, eyes squarely meeting her mother's. Harry couldn't imagine where this Hermione had been hiding. Had this woman been inside her all these years and he simply never noticed before?

From the slightly startled look on Miranda's face, he had to think this was new to her, too.

Miranda recovered in the next moment and cleared her throat. "Lunch is ready." Harry was sure that her voice was a little colder than it had been before. It made him regret hugging Hermione, no matter how much he'd needed it. It wasn't worth angering Hermione's parents.

Hermione smiled. "All right," and back was the old Hermione, the Hermione from the train station. The Hermione that was gay and chipper for her parents' sake.

Miranda looked a long moment at Hermione, and Harry knew that she was just now understanding that the Hermione she'd seen since the station, the Hermione she'd always known, was an act. She recognized with bewilderment that her daughter had been faking being same old Hermione. That in unguarded moments, she was no longer a Hermione that Miranda would immediately recognize.

"Come on, Harry," Hermione turned to him and Harry met her eyes and searched frantically for some foothold. Could the Granger household survive his presence? Look what it had done so far, even if only for a moment Miranda had seen a stranger in her daughter.

But Hermione's smile was back, suggesting everything was fine. It was the light in her eyes saying the same thing that finally got Harry to move and follow her out of the room.

* * *

Miranda watched Harry and Hermione like a hawk during lunch. Harry didn't say much; he ate quietly, as though afraid every movement would be a misstep. He answered direct questions, but otherwise was the very definition of unobtrusive. He occasionally looked toward Hermione. When Hermione happened to catch his eye there would be a moment, something, a surge of something that transcended the four of them at the table eating turkey sandwiches. In those seconds, Miranda saw flickers of a girl, a woman, a side of Hermione she had never seen before. It was the same flash that she'd seen when she caught Hermione and Harry hugging. It was almost like a disjointed soul had moved into Hermione's body. A soul older, wiser, solemner than the girl Miranda saw leave for Hogwarts at the beginning of term.

It made her want to cry 'dear lord, what's happened?'

Jake, oblivious, was making conversation with Hermione like old times. He asked about the school year and finally Hermione talked about Hogwarts. Miranda only then realized it was the first time their normally talkative daughter had broached the subject that was usually her topic of choice.

Miranda listened with split concentration while Hermione gave a very, very brief, non-specific account of the year. That, too, was abnormal. Hermione could make a five-minute incident at Hogwarts into an hour long tale. It was almost with the air of an off-handed comment that she said, "Oh, well, this year there were people from a couple of other magic schools at Hogwarts for this tournament."

Miranda noticed, because she'd been watching both so intently, that Harry froze.

"Oh?" Jake asked. "What kind of tournament? Is this like that football game you mentioned?"

One side of Hermione's mouth quirked upward for a half-second. "No, not Quidditch. This was, well, a bigger competition, and there were only four contestants. Two from the other schools and two from Hogwarts."

Harry had stopped eating. He placed his hands slowly in his lap, as though trying to avoid drawing attention, as if he was trying to physically disappear. Hermione continued to smile at her father but her eyes slid over to rest on Harry, and the light in her eyes was anything but merry like her voice.

Miranda wanted to know, she needed to understand. Where was the cheerful, honest Hermione she'd raised? The girl whose face matched her mood?

Jake pressed further about the tournament. He teased that living in a house where he was outnumbered by women he was sports-starved.

"Oh," Hermione brightened, too brightly, "you ought to have Harry explain Quidditch to you, then. I know I've done a ruddy job, but Harry knows all about it. He's the Gryffindor seeker."

Jake smiled at the idea, clearly making an effort. "Well, then, Harry."

Harry flinched and looked up when the attention was on him.

Jake said amiably, "How does that sound to you?"

Harry nodded. "That'd be fine, sir."

Hermione sighed faintly in relief.

Jake reached for his glass. "Think you could explain this tournament as well? If it's sports-related then I fear my dear Hermione won't have paid much attention. I love her dearly, but she'd never notice a sport so long as there was a book to be had. I bet you could fill me in, though, right?"

Harry cast his eyes downward.

Hermione bit her lip. She glanced at Harry. She seemed to make a decision. "Well, yes, Harry was one of the Hogwarts contestants." Miranda noted that that detail was seemingly provided with reluctance and didn't know why there was the need.

Jake grunted in acknowledgement as he took a swallow of lemonade. "Ah, quite the sportsman, eh, Harry?"

Harry gave a stiff shrug. "I don't know about that. I prefer Quidditch."

"Tournament wasn't your fancy, I take it?"

Harry frowned. "No, sir."

Hermione jumped into the conversation again, talking about the Beauxbatons and Durmstrangs and reciting nearly an entire history of the two schools, and it was just like their old Hermione, but this time Miranda could see it was a farce. Hermione was chattering to pull the conversation away from the details of the tournament and from Harry. Miranda felt like her home had been twisted and left contorted in a shape she didn't know yet how to rectify. Her daughter had come home a changed person, and it didn't take a genius to know that Harry had a great deal to do with the emergence of this new Hermione.

Harry didn't eat another bite after the mention of the tournament. He picked at his food. Miranda noticed, and so did Hermione. She cast a worried, fretful look at him several times but she didn't say a word.

By the end of lunch things were back to some semblance of normal. Harry was explaining Quidditch to Jake, and the subject seemed to relax Harry. Kimmy had appeared in the dining room during the explanation of beaters and bludgers; no one had noticed the dog gone until it showed up out of the depths of the house and sat by the wall where she watched the proceedings alertly. Miranda could swear even the dog seemed to watch Harry with a kind of consuming interest.

Hermione helped Miranda clear the table when everyone was finished; she paused with a frown at Harry's half-eaten sandwich before throwing it away.

"Hermione," Miranda turned pointedly to her daughter. She'd sat in silence with the things she'd seen and discovered long enough. Her daughter had some explaining to do. And it shouldn't feel like introductions, but with the vastly different Hermione she'd seen in her daughter since the train station it felt like she was asking to get to know the young woman for the first time.

Hermione looked at her mother plainly. There was no hint of childish, open naivety in her expression. She looked unfathomably older.

"Would you come with me a moment? I'd like to speak with you."

Hermione stilled then nodded. It seemed Hermione understood what this concerned, and with that simple nod she acknowledged a conversation bound to happen. She accepted it like a penance, a cross to bear.

The two walked through the dining room, past the boys talking sports, and into the hall. Hermione followed her mother into her parents' bedroom. She closed the door behind her without having to be told and stood silently.

Miranda turned to face her daughter. She noted that the mask was gone, the faked fine that Hermione had been parading since the train station. Miranda wasn't sure if she was happy to see the act gone or not.

Miranda sat down on the edge of her and Jake's bed and studied her daughter a moment. Something in Hermione's face, something in the way her eyes glinted, made Miranda want to gather her daughter into her lap as she had when Hermione was little and scraped her knee and cried for comfort. Somehow, she looked like she needed consoling, even though Hermione stood unflinching, waiting bravely.

Miranda beckoned Hermione closer. After a beat, Hermione walked over to the bed and sat down facing her mother.

Miranda tried to think of where to start. 'Who are you?' seemed both right and wrong for the moment. Instead, she went to the incident that had done this, made Miranda look her daughter in the eye and recognize a different person looking back.

"I thought this Harry bloke was just a friend, Hermione."

Hermione sighed wearily. "He is, Mum."

Miranda cocked an eyebrow. Maybe so, but somehow that hug had seemed more than what childhood friends warranted.

Hermione's brow furrowed and she paused. It made her seem tired somehow. "Harry's… had a really bad year." She looked off to the side. Her mind was clearly racing. She dropped her chin and her voice in surrender. "He saw one of our classmates killed."

Miranda gasped involuntarily. Of everything she'd been braced to hear, a student's death had not been one of them.

Hermione's eyes watered. She reached up, wiped angrily at her own tears, and took a steadying breath. Where once Hermione would have just started talking, talked until she was dry in the mouth, this time she sat quietly and ached alone even though her mother was less than a foot away. Miranda cursed this time, of all times, for her daughter to decide to keep details sparse. She wanted to understand what had changed her girl.

Hermione's voice wavered as she said tremulously, "Harry was badly hurt. I thought… well, I­­­­-we almost lost him, too. It's just been rough on Harry. And his _family_," a burst of fury erupted in her voice, enough to make Miranda sit back. Never had such hate laced her daughter's tone.

Hermione stopped to control herself. "Harry's family… they're terrible. They don't care about him at all. I couldn't bear to see him go back there, not after what he'd been through. They'd see he was… they'd take advantage of his state, they'd only hurt him more. He's been through so much, and he has no where to turn… that's why I hugged him. Harry doesn't have anybody else who will."

Miranda had not expected this. When she decided to confront her daughter she had quite honestly anticipated a girlish blush, a giggle, then a confession that her little girl had developed a crush on her best friend. That would have made sense in a rational world. Miranda had some ideas on how to deal with that. But to have this thrown at her instead; her daughter's best friend witnessing the death of a fellow student, hints of an abusive family, of a life so devoid of affection that the girl before her was the only place to find something as commonplace as a hug… it was staggering and beyond the realm of normal. But then, looking at the ghost in the back of Hermione's eyes, Miranda had to admit her expectation of a teenage crush hadn't been realistic. Crushes didn't make a girl a matron, a child an old soul.

"Honey," Miranda began slowly. Hermione sighed, the shuddering sigh of a child, then she turned her eyes up to her mother. In the eyes it was not so much a child. "I'm not upset. I just wanted to know if there was anything I should worry about."

A tear slid down Hermione's cheek. Her chin quivered and her lips thinned. Miranda could almost see a break-down pending.

Hermione whimpered. "Yes, Mum, you should, but not about me."

Miranda couldn't hold back any longer. The ghost in her eyes be damned, her daughter's voice and body begged to be comforted. She reached over and drew Hermione into a hug. Hermione clung to her mother and finally, _finally_, let herself cry. Miranda held her daughter tightly as her lithe body was wracked with sobs. It scared Miranda. Hermione was a very strong person; she didn't shatter like this.

"Was it truly so bad?" she found herself asking desperately.

Hermione hiccupped and cried harder. Miranda clutched Hermione tighter. She had her answer.

After a couple of minutes Hermione calmed down. Her tears stopped and her breathing returned to normal. Miranda released her reluctantly when Hermione pulled away. Hermione wiped her face with her hands and sniffed.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm sorry things were so terrible."

Hermione nodded faintly. "It was ten times worse for Harry." She looked directly at her mother with puffy, red eyes that stood in stark contrast to the determination in her brown gaze. "He needs me."

At some point during the crying jag, Miranda had already figured that out. She nodded at Hermione. "I understand."

Hermione's eyes flashed, a burst of disbelief that her mother could possibly understand, then she looked down at the bedspread and composed herself.

Miranda took her daughter's hand. "Hermione… I know Harry means a great deal to you. And I don't just mean because I caught you two hugging. You've talked about nothing but Harry for four years. I'm glad he's here, if only so I might meet the boy who brought a smile to your face more times than I can count. For that alone he's welcome here. And though I don't know him, I hope you'll tell me how I can help. Because anyone who stirs this kind of devotion in you is worth the effort."

Hermione at last smiled, and it was the first honest smile, from the new Hermione, that Miranda had seen. And somehow, it was even sweeter to see. "He is, Mum."

Miranda bent forward and placed a kiss on her daughter's forehead. Somewhere in the unspoken exchanges between mother and daughter was the understanding that this summer was not about fun anymore, it was about healing a wounded boy.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry's inexplicable tension around Jake Granger was slowly letting up to tolerable levels as he explained the ins and outs of Quidditch to Hermione's father. Not until he was describing the principles and strategies of the game did Harry have the opportunity to stop and realize how much he'd missed the game during the year. He'd much rather have had a season of Quidditch than the Triwizard Tournament. Things were so much simpler when he was chasing the snitch. An easy answer, a single purpose. Nothing more than snatching that glint of gold from the sky.

Harry had believed he was fairly intent on describing Quidditch in detail to someone who'd never seen the game. He would have thought he'd get lost in the subject, but the second that movement in the hallway registered out of the corner of his eyes he stopped to look.

He'd noticed Hermione and her mother disappearing into the hall earlier. He'd noted it but didn't think much of it. Not consciously, anyway. Only after they'd been absent for a few minutes did Harry realize he'd been on increasingly heightened alert for their return. Or rather, Hermione's. When there was indication of someone returning the raptness of his sudden attentiveness looked him in the face.

Miranda returned to the dining room first and she gave him a strange, sad look. Harry was given pause by that, confused and a little taken aback because Miranda looked remarkably like Hermione when she made that face. Then Harry's every sense jumped to razor-sharp acuity and he sat up straighter in his chair. Hermione came following after her mother, arms crossed, nose red, and eyes swollen. He could tell she'd been crying.

A fierce force rose in his chest at the sight of her tear-streaked face. A strange conglomeration of worry and anger churned violently in his ribcage. He had the insane, ridiculous impulse to pull Hermione behind him, as though a Death Eater stood ready to strike her down.

Forgetting Jake, Harry stood from the table. Hermione stopped in the hallway, lingered in the shadows, and looked at him. She offered a thin smile.

The tide of protectiveness surged anew. If he'd stopped to consider it, the immensity of that impulse would have staggered him, it imbued him with the need to act, and it carried him across the room. He strode to Hermione. She looked up at him with a tired, plaintive, relieved expression as he neared, and Harry was on autopilot. Heedless of Hermione's parents, Harry ushered Hermione back down the hall, into the only place he knew in this home. He took Hermione to his bedroom and escorted her inside. Only once they were alone together did he realize he'd put his hand on her back, that he'd walked so very close to her, that he'd all but tucked her into his side as he took her away.

He'd worry about how that might have looked later.

"What's wrong?" he asked at once.

Hermione turned away, embarrassed by her own tears and perceived weakness. She wiped at her cheeks and shook her head. As she stepped from him Harry had to hold back from shadowing her every move.

Hermione moved a few paces away, arms still crossed over her chest, and turned reluctantly to Harry. "I'm sorry. I told my mum about Cedric."

Harry stilled. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. All of his certitude and resolve, the drive of purpose that he'd had when he brought Hermione to the bedroom, wavered in light of her confession. Somehow this had been more shaking than a Death Eater. At least there was a prescribed response to a Death Eater.

"Are you angry with me?" Hermione asked.

"No." He replied on reflex, but on further reflection it was still the truth. He was pretty sure he wasn't mad.

Hermione bit her lip and watched him closely.

Harry raked a hand anxiously through his tousled black hair. "What else did you tell her?"

Hermione paled and her eyebrows drew closer together. "I… that you were hurt. That'd you had a dreadful year."

Harry couldn't even start to decide how he felt about Miranda knowing even that much.

"I didn't tell her you were…" Hermione's plea died on her lips and when he looked at her there was a kind of panic and agony in her face. She blinked at him, lips pressed tightly together, then she turned her head away and shut her eyes.

Strangely, it made Harry momentarily cognizant of the faint, last lingering aches in his joints from the Cruciatus. He rubbed his arms with his hands and frowned.

Hermione sat down on the end of the bed as she had when she first showed Harry the room. She looked down at her shoes, clearly guilty for what she'd revealed of what might well be considered Harry's personal business.

Harry looked at her and felt stupid for noticing, considering the issues at hand, the way her hair fell in front of her face in brown-gold ringlets.

Harry walked over and sat down beside her. Hermione looked at him warily. He studied her rich brown eyes a moment before he said, "It's okay."

Hermione scowled, not at him, but at the situation.

Harry couldn't help himself; he reached up and brushed a lock of hair back from Hermione's face. The look she favored him with was gentler, kinder, more open to listening. Harry played his fingertips through the trapped section of hair a second then dropped his hand.

"It's hard to tell them," Hermione started, stopped mid-sentence, then continued. "They don't know that there have been a lot of things over the years I never told them. Now it seems there's just too much to tell."

He was conspicuously quiet a moment. "I never would have pegged you to not tell your parents stuff."

Hermione gave a strange, sour smile. "Well, really, we've been involved in some pretty dangerous things. Truthfully, I was afraid to tell them. What if they knew everything and decided it was too dangerous and didn't let me go back to Hogwarts? I couldn't bear it. All the risk has been worth it to be there." Hermione looked pointedly at him a moment then averted her eyes. She was quiet in deep thought for a while. "Suppose now there's no choice but to tell them."

Harry tried to imagine sitting down, facing Hermione's parents, and having it all told. Everything about Voldemort and the tournament and all the things he had to live but because he was famous never had to say. It turned his stomach and made him unspeakably tired and depressed.

"Well, they're your parents. Whatever you think they ought to know, I think you ought to tell them."

Hermione looked slowly at him and seemed to spend a good minute gauging him, perhaps measuring his sincerity. "Are you sure?"

Harry was sure of very little lately, much less this. He sat there quietly rather than tell her what might be a lie. He trusted her enough to leave it up to her.

"No," Hermione shook her head curtly. Harry looked at her and saw firm decisiveness in her expression. "No, I'll not." She turned glittering, intense eyes on Harry. "It may be mucked up, but it's _our_ world, Harry. I love my parents, but they're…" Hermione seemed to stumble at the leap her next word forced, "muggles. There's not a thing they could do to protect me from You Know Who or his followers. You alone could do more to protect me than the both of them together."

She'd used it as an example, a comment to the effect that one underage wizard was more than two adult muggles, but it had the effect of making something twist painfully in Harry's chest. He caught his breath and his heart hammered. Part of him wanted to scream in panic 'blimey, Hermione, don't say that! Don't _depend_ on me like that!' while another part of him wanted to shake the world to its foundation, tear reality apart to make a new beginning for her. Someplace safer than either had known in their entire lives. It made him want to run, but for one brief moment it also made him want to face Voldemort then and there. To end this now just to not let her down.

Hermione was still turning her decision over in her mind, unaware of Harry's small inner crisis. She was inside her own head, regarding the words she'd said and the proclamation she'd made. And with a calm gravity she made it her truth. Then and there her world schismed off. Where before she had walked the line between muggle and magic as a native of both, as she sat there next to Harry she made the choice. She made the ultimate choice she'd thought she could postpone until graduating from Hogwarts. She chose magic, and it was with so little remorse that he saw her retire from the world of muggles. She'd have her parents, but they would be the last relic of a life she willfully abandoned, a nostalgic timepiece but no longer her place.

Somehow, watching her pick made Harry feel as though a decision in his life he didn't know had been unresolved was settled. He'd never known he had his own uncertainties that tore him between muggle and magic until he saw it vividly in Hermione. He didn't know he was waiting for permission to break free until she broke before him.

"You'll let me help you, won't you, Harry?"

Harry blinked. He'd been so overcome with a strange kind of peace and relief to denounce his citizenship to the muggle world that her sudden words took him by surprise. It was almost impossible to think that something as commonplace as conversation would be allowed after such a monumental event.

When he focused on her she was watching him very intently. There was a need for his consent, whatever this request she asked, that he'd not seen so blaring before in her features. Almost on the spot, without fully understanding her question, he wanted to say yes. Whatever she wanted.

Prudence made him ask. "Help me what?"

Hermione took his hand, eyes never leaving his. "Fight Voldemort."

Harry jerked back. 'No' was his instinctive reaction. Anything but that. In the instant she asked he could only see Cedric… when he thought on it another second it was Hermione instead. Soaring joy and freedom were replaced with a dread and terror more powerful than Harry had ever known.

Hermione gripped his hand tighter, refused to let him flee.

"Hermione! I can't. I can't let you. You could be killed. I won't put you in that kind of danger."

Hermione scowled. This time it was at him. "Oh, don't you understand, Harry? Don't you get it? You've not a choice. You can't leave me."

He wasn't sure how she meant it, but he knew how it resonated pure and true in his chest. No, he couldn't. He'd crippled himself with his need for her. She was right, as always. He couldn't let her go. Because he was selfish he'd let her be in that kind of danger.

"I'll save you," he heard himself say, the words like a benediction. As soon as they were out of his mouth he felt like an idiot. He didn't know that he could do that. He didn't even know if he could save himself. He hated to think of lying to her.

But Hermione was watching him calmly, without doubt. She only nodded and leaned closer. "You'll save us. He'll be gone and then we'll be free, Harry."

Harry shivered involuntarily when a strange, wispy image rushed through his mind, as though a half-formed scene in one of Trelawney's crystal balls. Him and Hermione and a day beyond Hogwarts, beyond the threat of Voldemort, beyond so many years he used to think he'd never live to see. The hints of a promise that he couldn't fathom, couldn't comprehend without falling apart. He gasped for breath and Hermione caught him on the exhale with a hand placed softly on his chest.

"We have to win," Harry whispered. The stakes were so much higher now. He'd always known Voldemort might one day take his life. Now it was a matter of Hermione's.

Hermione lowered her hand and her tone conveyed the nonnegotiable. "We will." She paused a few seconds then the moment, the enormity of all they'd said and vowed, seemed to step behind a curtain for safe-keeping. She stood and tugged on his hand for him to follow suit. "Come on. I should give you a proper tour of the house."

* * *

"Miri," Jake said as he and his wife were getting ready for bed.

"Hmm?" Miranda murmured as she unbound her wild chestnut hair and grabbed a brush.

"What do you know about this boy Harry?"

Miranda smiled sagaciously. "I thought you might ask once he showed up," she picked up a book on her nightstand and held it out to her husband. "I took it from Hermione's bookshelf; I marked the chapter on him."

"He has a _chapter_?"

Miranda's smile turned bittersweet. "He is a rather remarkable boy, Jake… though I'm not sure it's really in the best way."

Jake took the book, turned to the bookmarked page, and with an astounded shake of his head sat back against the headboard and began to read. By the time Miranda joined him, ready for bed, his face was a study of contemplative disquiet. He looked up from reading and considered his wife. "I'm not sure I like this, dear."

"What do you mean?"

Jake put the book down. "At the train station today, before we got back to the car, Harry stopped me and… warned me."

Miranda frowned and gave a half-nod for him to continue.

"He told me he was dangerous," Jake glanced at the book in his lap, "rather, that he had very dangerous enemies. I don't know that I rightly believed him. What boy his age could have enemies like that?" Jake shook his head and set the book aside as though it was poisonous. "But he _does_."

Miranda moved the covers aside and slipped between the sheets. "I'm worried, too." A thick pause. "Hermione told me today that a student was killed at Hogwarts this year."

"What?!"

"I don't think she really wanted to tell me. I kind of cornered her about Harry and she told me. It seems Harry was there when it happened."

Jake was flabbergasted. "What should we do?"

Miranda sighed in defeat. "What _can_ we do? This boy Harry is her best friend; we can't very well tell her to stop spending time with him."

"Why not?" Jake asked a bit petulantly.

Miranda winced as though physically pained to speak it. "You've seen her around him. You've heard the way she's talked about him for years; if we forced her to choose I don't think we'd like her choice, honey."

"Oh, bullocks," Jake grumbled. He knew Miranda was right.

"She's a smart girl… I fear that's the only thing we can trust."

"Maybe she should go to a normal school next year. You know, instead of Hogwarts. Would have to be safer than that magic school, wouldn't it? Without…" Jake picked up the book and shook it to indicate the horror story within that was their houseguest's life.

Miranda didn't answer right away. "I've thought that too, several times over the years… but could you really do it? Tell her not to go? I couldn't, and I've tried. I've gone so far as standing at the door to her room to tell her we were putting her into public school. You know what stopped me? An owl. Just then one of those mail birds brought her a letter, and she jumped up to fetch it, and I knew I could never take it from her. It's not just a phase she's going through, it's who she _is_. She'll always have this in her, a part of her, and wouldn't it be terribly phobic and myopic of us to think we could just stick her in a normal school and have everything fixed?"

Jake grunted unhappily. "I don't want to admit you're right." After a time scowling he sighed in resignation. "I don't know if I care for this Harry kid."

"Always or just since you read that book?" Miranda asked pointedly.

"Oh fine. But still, there's something a bit dramatic about him, isn't there?"

"Perhaps that's what comes of living through the things he has."

"They're children! He shouldn't have, and he oughtn't to bring our Hermione into it."

"Oh, Jake, she brought herself into it. You know she wouldn't get involved any other way."

"Well, I—" whatever Jake began to say was cut short when there was an inhuman screech within the house, followed by a loud crash.

As one, Jake and Miranda leapt out of bed, rushed out of their room, and with two short strides down the hall were at the scene of the disruption.

Miranda gave a squawk and Jake grabbed his wife's arm as though to brace her.

The guest room door stood open, giving full view of the spectacle within. Harry's trunk was open on the floor and somehow articles of clothing had ended up all over the room, as though they'd leapt from his suitcase the moment it was unlatched. Harry and Hermione were both standing in the room, both still fully dressed from the day, Hermione closer to the door. When Jake and Miranda showed up they both looked toward the adults with mixed looks of surprise, confusion, and self-recrimination to have brought the attention of the parents. In the window frame was the reason Miranda had yelped. A creature, short in stature with large, bat-like ears and globe-like green eyes, wearing a pair of blue silk boxer shorts like overalls, stood in the windowsill with thin arms and legs spread wide like a goalie guarding the net. Its wide eyes were locked on the mass of white on the floor of the room. Hedwig was there, wings spread like a circling wrestler's as she screeched and snapped her beak angrily at the strange creature standing in the open window. White feathers littered the floor as though the bird and creature had tussled and Jake and Miranda had walked in on a détente. Completing the cast, Crookshanks was on Harry's bed watching the goings on, and were it not for the slightly raised hairs on his back would have seem utterly unmoved by the incident.

"What the…" Jake gaped. He couldn't tear his eyes from the small creature. "What is _that_?"

Hermione answered brusquely, like it was a secondary matter to the issue at hand. "She's a house elf. She was assigned to watch over Harry this summer. That's Kimmy, Dad."

"Wa-the _dog_?!"

Miranda asked, "What is going on here?"

Harry edged closer to the obvious stand-off between Kimmy and Hedwig.

"She must not go, Mister Harry Potter," a resolute Kimmy stated, still spread wide to block the window.

Hedwig screamed indignantly.

Harry knelt beside the owl and said gently, "All right, Hedwig?" He glanced in concern at the errant feathers on the floor and dresser. Hedwig tucked her wings to her sides and clicked her beak. She shuffled on her feet and glared at Kimmy. She appeared fine aside from being in a terrible temper.

Kimmy barely lowered her arms. "Harry Potter's owl is easy to recognize. You must not allow her to leave the house as she is, the wrong type could see her return here."

Hermione stood back and watched without comment. Crookshanks sat down, lifted a paw, and began to clean himself. His manner would suggest complete disinterest were it not for the fact he kept his eyes fixed on Harry and Hedwig the entire time.

Harry looked sadly at his bird then at Kimmy. "But surely she doesn't have to stay inside all summer?"

"Of course she doesn't, sir. I must needs only to transfigure her appearance a bit. Then they wouldn't recognize her."

Hedwig screeched again. Obviously that was an insult of immeasurable proportions.

"What kind of 'transfiguration' are you talking about?" Harry asked warily.

"Her color foremost, sir. A snowy owl is far too easy to see. Even at night she's so easily spotted."

Harry sat down fully on the floor, slid closer to Hedwig, and offered her his forearm. Hedwig stepped up and closed her claws around the material of his jacket. The action was completed without Hedwig once taking her eyes off Kimmy. Harry brought the bird to his lap and stroked her breast feathers. "Will you let her change your color, Hedwig?" he asked in a very gentle, low voice.

Hedwig chirruped, as though shocked he took Kimmy's side, and looked away.

"Oh, honestly, who would think Hedwig would be so vain about her looks," Hermione muttered.

"Hermione," Harry said in a slightly sterner tone of voice. Hedwig looked back at Harry, maybe only forgiving him in the wake of being defended against Hermione.

"Please, Hedwig. Kimmy's right. A lot of people know you're my familiar. We don't need to invite trouble any more than we already do. I couldn't bear to see you stuck indoors all summer like we were back at the Dursleys. Let Kimmy change your color. No matter what color you are, you're a beautiful owl."

Hedwig ruffled her feathers and half-closed her eyes in an eerie imitation of a human glower. Then she laid her feathers flat again and reached up to nibble Harry's ear. Harry smiled and pet her tenderly. "Thank you, Hedwig." Harry turned to Kimmy and said, "Go ahead, Kimmy. Just her color, though, please? I don't know that she'd ever forgive either of us if you turned her into a scoop owl."

Kimmy nodded and gave a snap of her fingers. Before their eyes Hedwig's feathers changed. Starting at her head it was like watching a bottle of ink spill over her body… black engulfed her feathers until the snow white bird on Harry's arm was pitch black.

"Be very hard indeed to spot her at night now," Kimmy said plainly.

Hedwig looked down at herself and seemed to lament the loss of her gorgeous plumage. Harry scratched her neck lovingly. "You look fine, Hedwig. The black really brings out your eyes."

Hedwig cast Harry a scathing 'don't patronize me' look, then took off from Harry's lap. Kimmy leapt aside from the open window and Hedwig disappeared quickly into the night… quicker than she would have as a white owl.

Harry stood from the floor and turned to face Hermione… and incidentally also faced Jake and Miranda. He looked to the floor and shifted on his feet.

Kimmy adjusted her boxers as a businessman might smooth out a suit and stepped forward. "Mister and Missus Granger! I'm Kimmy. Master Albus asked me to protect Harry Potter."

Jake and Miranda gaped at the little creature that was looking up at them.

Hermione spoke first. "Is that all right, Mum, Dad? She won't be any trouble."

"Oh no, no trouble. Here to _prevent_ trouble." Kimmy rocked from the balls of her feet to the heels like a schoolgirl.

"Headmaster Dumbledore recommended that she stay the summer," Hermione further appealed. "He chose Kimmy because she's used to being around mug…non-magic people, she'll make sure no one sees her as a house elf but us. You don't mind, do you?"

"Well… um, I guess not," Jake stuttered.

Hermione sighed in relief.

Miranda at last brushed her husband's hand off her upper arm. "No, I suppose it's not a problem. But… well, when we thought she was a dog we just put out a mat for her to sleep on. I mean, might she... um, you, want a bit better than a dog bed, Kimmy?"

Kimmy grinned. "No worries! Kimmy's already set up some living quarters in your hall closet! Really cozy room just right of the raincoats!"

"Oh, um… well, all right, then. The closet. Wait, does that mean we're supposed to knock before we get into the closet or something?"

Kimmy giggled and bounced up and down, causing her to make a grab for the blue boxers that almost slid off her body entirely. "Such funny muggles! No need to worry about disturbing Kimmy. Good night!" Kimmy trotted out of the room, between Jake and Miranda's legs, and as promised scurried to the hall closet, opened the door, slipped inside, and shut the closet door after her.

Miranda and Jake, still baffled, looked back into the room at Harry and Hermione.

Hermione was smiling sheepishly. "Sorry for the racket."

Miranda didn't know what to say. Instead she looked around at the mess of the room. Seeing her glance, Harry said at once, "I'll clean it up."

Jake and Miranda exchanged like shrugs. "Very well then. Good night, you two." Miranda gently pushed Jake in front of her back in the direction of their bedroom.

"I don't think 'what the bloody hell' fully covers that," Jake mused aloud.

"Oh, not nearly, but I suspect we'd best get used to it for the summer."


	10. Chapter 10

If he could distill the whole of his summer to this, Harry thought, it could possibly be the best summer he'd ever had.

Harry was lying on his back on the floor of Hermione's bedroom. His fingers were interlaced behind his head, his ankles crossed… he lay as one might outdoors under a pale sky soaking up the sun. He just happened to be in his best friend's room. Hermione was sitting Indian-style atop her pink bedspread, sorting through muggle mail that had come for her while she was at Hogwarts but that hadn't been important enough to forward on by owl. The house was astoundingly quiet; Hermione's parents had both left for work that morning. Harry wasn't used to such peaceful stillness. Aunt Petunia didn't work so she was always at the house on Privet Drive, and usually when Harry was there Dudley was, too, and peace and quiet would run screaming bloody murder at the sight of Dudley Dursley. Throw in Uncle Vernon's thundering, blustering presence and Harry lived in a veritable cacophony of ugly noise, a din he was so accustomed to that he'd never noticed the anarchy of sound. Then, at Hogwarts, there were always other students in the same classroom, in the same dorm, at the same table at meals, even communal loos. There was no true solitude. Even at the Weasley home it was like a family-size train station of activity, enjoyable but still busy. When Jake and Miranda left that morning and it was just Harry and Hermione an enormous silence fell over the house.

Harry didn't know it could be that quiet without it also being a bad sign. In Harry's experience, it got very, very quiet before really bad things happened, but that wasn't the quality of this silence. It was like the house dozed off when the owners left, content and secure, and Harry thought it very much like a breath of fresh air he'd never known he wanted, didn't suspect could exist. There was also a kind of release of an underlying knot of tension when Jake and Miranda were gone. He felt calmer, better able to breathe, to relax, to finally stop worrying what he might do wrong. It was just him and Hermione and that was what he'd been longing for since King's Cross.

Hermione had mentioned her mail and Harry had just tagged along without asking. Hermione didn't question him following her around the house, right into her bedroom. While Hermione gathered her stack of letters and crawled up on to her bed Harry had wandered around her room, taking it in with his eyes and occasional questing fingertips. The room was very Hermione. A queen-sized bed with a fluffy pink comforter took up the lion's share of the room. Her walls were lined with shelves that had been put up to accommodate the rows of books. Not a surprise in the least. She had a desk with parchment, quills, and stacked books on it. It looked as though she'd last studied on it yesterday rather than before the beginning of term. Harry had stopped at the only aesthetic adornment in the room, a painting on the wall of a commanding, bearded man and a young, beautiful brown-haired woman in a dark forest. The woman huddled close to the older man's side, as though sheltering in the brace of his form. The artistry was very elegant and detailed, clearly lovingly rendered. It looked like an art museum piece, or maybe like one of the portraits in Hogwarts just waiting to begin moving. It also looked as though it meant something more than just a nameless man and nameless woman. It had made him look to Hermione in question. "It's Prospero and Miranda from The Tempest," Hermione said then smiled to herself in private amusement. "It used to be my mother's, her father's before that. Suppose you could call it an heirloom."

Harry supposed the duck of her head suggested a painting for an heirloom should have been silly, but it seemed perfectly suitable to him. Without so much as a flick of the eyes to pass judgment on her family treasure, Harry left the painting and stretched out on the floor much as he'd lain beneath the tree beside the Black Lake at Hogwarts.

He'd been lying there for half an hour in complete silence. Hermione went through her mail on the bed, unrushed and methodical. Harry listened to the sound of tearing envelopes, folding papers, smoothed creases, sorted piles. It was oddly hypnotic and soothing. He started at the ceiling, perfectly happy to lie on her floor all day while she settled back into her home life.

"You want me to move over?" Hermione asked after what seemed a timeless content in Harry's half-focused mind. He blinked and looked up and over at her. "Huh?"

Hermione was looking down at him from the bed. "I asked if you wanted me to move over so you can lie out on the bed? It just looks like I'm about to bore you to sleep." A very faint, slightly apologetic smile touched her mouth.

Harry didn't move a muscle to get up. "You're not. This is nice."

"Lying on there while I read mail? Oh, Harry, you don't expect me to believe that, do you? We can do something else if you want." Hermione put her letters down in a show of willingness.

Harry resolutely refused to move. How was he supposed to tell her that this was probably the best first day of summer of his young life? That if he were at Privet Drive he'd be doing chores enough to make a house elf cry mistreatment or that he'd be forced to endure not-so-mock boxing matches with Dudley where he'd be punished if he made a showing for himself? She didn't need to hear that any more than he wanted to say it.

"Where are all your pictures of Ron?" Harry asked.

Hermione froze a moment. "What?"

Harry, without getting up, turned his head toward the bureau to the other side of him. There were three framed wizard pictures that had caught his eye on his first investigative circuit of the room. One was of him and Hedwig first year sitting together on a hilltop, boy and owl appearing almost equal in size considering how small Harry had been then. Harry had no idea anyone had been present with a camera when it was taken, but there was no mistaking himself and Hedwig, that mop of wild black hair and the pristine white feathers were dead giveaways. It was the way he'd spent time alone with Hedwig at Hogwarts on countless occasions, the relaxed posture of both boy and bird in the photo seemingly seeking counsel and wisdom from one another in long conversations that never contained a single word. As sunlight glinted through breaks in the clouds beyond the two figures, little Harry would periodically reach out and stroke Hedwig's back.

Another was a picture of the common room during a party celebrating a Gryffindor Quidditch win last year. Harry was prominently featured in the image, still decked in his Quidditch robes and looking a bit worse for wear, grass-stained, bruised, and hair messier than usual, but he was grinning like a fool, his expression slightly punch-drunk (which made sense, after a good game Harry felt a little high from the rush of it all). He still held the snitch in his hand, the golden wings beating between his fingers for escape. Oliver Wood was hoisting bootlegged butterbeer in the background while Fred and George made wild gesticulations, clearly recreating some fantastic bludger hits. Angelina was standing on the arm of the couch with broom in hand, as though seriously giving thought to hopping on and doing a victory lap around the common room in defiance of all school rules.

The third was a new addition, a picture from fourth year. It was himself and Hermione at the Yule Ball. They were standing together on the staircase, Harry looking quite more dashing in his dress robes if he did say so himself (considering he felt like one of McGonagall's baboons) than he'd thought at the time, and Hermione looking just as breathtakingly lovely as she had the first moment he saw her descend the steps. Harry remembered when that picture was taken all too well. After the mortifying first dance when he'd felt like crawling under a table to avoid the attention directed on him, the dance floor had filled up and Harry had managed to escape to the outskirts. Parvati hadn't been thrilled with her disappearing date but Harry hadn't intended to dance any more than absolutely necessary. Except Hermione hadn't allowed him to get away with it. She'd begged pardon from Viktor for a song, dragged Harry on to the floor, and pretty well ordered him to dance and have a good time. And for that one dance with Hermione, he had. There wasn't a gut-tightening pressure to not be a fool with Hermione… when he stumbled or found himself counting under his breath Hermione just laughed and gave him these strange mini-hugs… placing her cheek to his, tugging faintly on his shoulders, then stepping back and smiling encouragement. The picture was taken after that one fun dance with Hermione. They'd run out to the corridor nearly fit to burst with laughter… Harry had been so intent on the steps that he'd steered them both into several couples and by some strange alignment of chance had maneuvered themselves between Dumbledore and McGonagall who'd been dancing together. How they'd managed that Harry still had no idea. Dumbledore had smiled and exclaimed, "Why, Harry, I'd be delighted to change partners, but really, one should ask to cut in before doing so." With anyone but Hermione he would have been utterly humiliated, but Hermione had adapted the cheek-to-cheek hug, threw in an arm around his neck, and suddenly the light laughter in his ear had made him burst into laughter, too. When they'd started drawing queer looks they'd rushed out to the corridor in stitches. That's when a voice had called their names, they'd turned, and caught a flash of Colin Creevey and his ever-ready camera.

Harry hadn't known Hermione got that picture from Colin until he saw it on her bureau. While at the time he and Hermione had merely been standing next to each other on the steps, in the photo their doppelgangers took it upon themselves to pose. Hermione moved into Harry's side, draped her arm around his neck, and dropped her head to his shoulder, while Harry's arm came up and wrapped around her waist. Harry lifted an eyebrow at their likenesses for their… shameless openness. They were both smiling brightly and looking like they were having a very good time. The laughter from seconds before the camera flashed was still in their faces. It was before that ugly fight between Ron and Hermione (how very typical) that had left Hermione at the end of the evening in tears.

Harry looked at the picture now and marveled at the pair of them. They looked so happy… so… He wouldn't think 'good together' because he believed he shouldn't, but they weren't a poorly matched couple. They didn't look like awkward counterparts, which was more than he could say for him and Parvati or even Hermione and Krum. Ron had a point, the Bulgarian brute was a bit of a pumpkin-head.

It took a moment of looking for Harry to notice that Ron wasn't in the pictures on Hermione's bureau; he wasn't even in the background of the Gryffindor celebration.

Harry looked back at Hermione and said again, "You haven't any pictures of Ron."

Hermione looked up at her pictures, seemed to only then see them and that Harry was right, then she tensed. "Oh." A blush colored her cheeks.

Harry was suddenly more interested in her answer than he'd been when he asked the question.

Hermione shifted and waved an overly-dismissive hand. "Well, you know, he takes rotten pictures. Seems he's always making some face."

Harry smiled. She was right. Best way to describe Ron in photographs would be an Irish Setter puppy just untangled from a self-made disaster and giving a look that said 'quite a mess, this is. What's one to do?' "Well, yeah, I suppose you're right, but that's Ron."

Hermione fiddled with the corner of a letter. "Yes, well…" and whatever she meant to say just fell away into nothing.

Harry watched her intently. There was something there, something he should catch, something he should suddenly, miraculously understand, but he couldn't figure it out.

Hermione sighed and the instant was gone.

He'd have to try and catch it later… he could only hope it gave a gold glint for him to grab when it made another pass.

"Why have the one of me and Hedwig?" he found himself asking, at first to redirect the conversation. Only once he said it did it have a form that truly puzzled him. "Something sad about that picture, I think." Maybe it was the expanse of the Hogwarts grounds in the background, or the cloudy sky, or maybe the fact that in that picture his eleven-year-old self and a single owl were the only signs of life.

"I know," Hermione said slowly. She looked down at Harry, studied him a moment, then looked up toward the picture in question. She frowned thoughtfully. "I guess it was the first time I'd seen someone else as… alone as me. Would it be terrible of me to admit that it made me feel better?"

Harry could never believe anything Hermione felt was fundamentally wrong. "No." He understood that in all its trappings without a single misgiving. He'd spent his entire life before Hogwarts not knowing what it meant to have a friend. He knew Hermione had come to Hogwarts much the same in that respect. He'd intellectually known it, but he'd never given pause to feel on it before. It set an ache in his chest to think Hermione had ever felt the kind of loneliness he used to accept as normal for him. She was better than that kind of dark emotion.

"Well, won't ever be a concern for either of us again, will it?" he said with determination as he sat up on the floor and faced her. He couldn't let himself think of Hermione feeling like that ever again.

Hermione looked up at him and smiled. "No, it won't."

They stared silently at one another a moment, and may have spent a good while longer doing it, but were interrupted when Hermione's bedroom door opened and Kimmy came in. In addition to her boxer short overalls (this time sporting moving hippogriffs), she also wore a pair of stars-spangled shorts on her head, the tips of her ears poking out either leg hole and looking like some kind of silly chef's hat.

Hermione bit her lip to stop from laughing.

Harry hoped his grin would be taken as one of greeting and not the prelude to a laugh. "Hi, Kimmy."

"Hellos, Mister Potter and Miss Granger. Is all well? No mischief?" she looked between Harry and Hermione openly.

"Mischief? No, why do you ask? Have you been talking to Professor McGonagall?" Harry asked.

Hermione let loose the laugh in her chest; Harry knew it was in large part for Kimmy's boxer hat.

Kimmy sat down on the floor like Harry and answered, "When Masters Albus and Aberforth were young and quiet it usually meant mischief. You twos were very quiet in here for a long time. But I see nothing afoot. Mister Potter and Miss Granger are better behaved than Masters Albus and Aberforth, then!"

Hermione turned to putting away her read letters. "I suppose it would be a betrayal to the headmaster to ask what exactly that means?"

Kimmy smiled serenely at Hermione. "Most certainly, but it's regrettable I cannot say. Some very good times had we three so very long ago."

Hermione looked only a little disappointed that they wouldn't hear of the adventures of young Albus Dumbledore. "You're a good elf, Kimmy."

Kimmy only nodded in secret amusement at those untold memories dancing behind her eyes.

Harry rose from the floor. "Shall I make us lunch?"

"Oh, you don't have to do that, Harry. Just give me a few minutes to finish up here and I'll scrounge us up something, or we could even order out."

"I could do lunch!" Kimmy leapt up eagerly and raised her hand as if to snap a small feast into existence that very second.

Harry waved them both off. "No, really, I'd rather do it." Harry smiled at Hermione with strange pride in his voice. "You wouldn't know it, but I'm rather good in the kitchen." Harry's smile barely slipped. "That was one thing the Dursleys made sure I learned." He shook off the gloom of his aunt and uncle. "Come on, let me impress you, Hermione."

"Oh, impressive, are you?" Hermione teased.

Harry just continued to smile cheekily.

Hermione chuckled and gave in. "Okay, but don't go to too much trouble, you're a guest here, you know. _And_ it's summer holiday. It's just not proper."

"Nothing extravagant, I promise."

"Oh, but do let Kimmy help!" Kimmy pleaded. Harry began to think the house elf was probably just as out-of-sorts with so little to do that he was. His summers were usually more like a labor camp. It felt weird to just lie back all day and relax without a Snape-essay length list of chores to be finished.

"Sure, Kimmy, truth be told I may know my way around a kitchen, but not _this_ kitchen. I could use some help finding everything I need."

Hermione moved to rise from the bed, "Oh, I could-"

"Sit. Stay. Kimmy and I will take care of it." Harry bade Kimmy follow him and left Hermione in her room to finish her mail. He was actually looking forward to cooking for Hermione. She didn't know he was good at this, and it felt so very infrequent that he was able to boast a talent outside of Quidditch and Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seemed ever rarer that he was actually better at something than Hermione, the witch who seemed to have no limits to her abilities.


	11. Chapter 11

When Miranda came home for lunch she heard music coming from the kitchen. Curious, she followed the sound and stopped at the sight before her.

The kitchen was in full use, an almost unprecedented sight if Miranda herself wasn't the one using it. Ingredients, bowls, and utensils littered the countertops. The music was coming from the radio tuned into a station Miranda had never heard before (and soon understood why when lines like 'come fly on my broom with me' warbled from the speakers), lending comfortable ambiance to the room. Kimmy the house elf was sitting on the countertop across from the stove, her bare legs swinging as she hummed with the music. Her boxer shorts hat took Miranda aback a second, but nothing could compare to the mental start when she spotted Harry. The boy was tending the stove-top and a saucer from which a truly delicious smell was rising. He was stirring and adding spices with practiced ease. He, too, wore a pair of boxer shorts on his head, blue and white stripped.

Miranda wasn't sure if she should laugh, gape, or just turn around and sort out the strange universe that had taken over her kitchen in a safe, quiet place.

"Missus Granger!" Kimmy greeted congenially when the house elf spotted her.

Harry jumped and whirled, spoon in hand and dripping on to the floor while Harry looked at her, wide-eyed.

"Missus Granger!" Harry gulped and hastily tore the boxers off his head with a blush. "Err… hi."

Miranda stepped into the kitchen. "Hello, Harry. What's all this?"

Harry cleared his throat and tossed the boxers in his hand to Kimmy. "Oh, uh, I was just making me and Hermione lunch. Um… would you like some? It's nearly done."

"You cook?" Miranda couldn't help the note of astonishment in her voice as she moved over to the stove as if drawn by the aroma.

"Yeah."

Miranda peered down into the saucer and her mouth did start to water. "Is that vegetable soup?" She looked around the kitchen at the scattered items and understanding dawned. "And did you make that _from scratch_?"

Harry shifted on his feet. "Um… yeah. I don't get to make it much, my uncle usually demands heftier dishes, so it might not be the best seeing as it's been so long since I made it last. I'm sorry for using your things without asking, I was going to have Kimmy replace what I used, and I was going to clean it all up and have everything back where it belonged before you got home."

Miranda peered closely at Harry from their close stance over the pot of soup. The tone of his voice and the rushed assurances and apologies, one after another, gave her suspicious pause. "Don't worry about that, Harry. It's fine. To be honest, I'm just surprised. Do you have any idea what Jake's idea of cooking is? Or _Hermione's_? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best either of them can manage in the kitchen. This looks absolutely delicious. Yes, I would love to have some."

Harry smiled in relief. Miranda stopped when she realized that, when he smiled, when he wasn't tense or withdrawn or hesitant, he was actually quite a handsome boy.

"Why don't I set the table…" Miranda turned toward the dining room to see that the places were already set. And someone had not only meticulously set two places, already prepared drinks, and set out some sliced Italian bread on a cutting board, but had also placed a vase with fresh flowers in the center. As she looked on, the short-statured house elf was scurrying with a third place mat, bowl, and spoon to set a place for Miranda.

"Oh, um, Kimmy's already seen to the table," Harry said unnecessarily.

"Oh, well, guess I'll just go tell Hermione…" before Miranda could finish her sentence, Kimmy, finished setting Miranda's place, dashed through the kitchen, into the hall, and her feet slapping bare-footed on the floor marked her progression toward Hermione's bedroom.

Harry smirked. "Maybe you should go ahead and sit down?"

Miranda shook her head in wonder and smiled. "Oh, dear, I fear I could get used to this."

Harry tended to the last of the soup preparations when Hermione came in following Kimmy. "Hi, Mum. Harry! This smells great!"

"Don't pass judgment until you've tried it," he retorted, but there was a definite pleased tone in his voice as he carried the pot to the table and ladled out portions into each waiting bowl. Hermione looked around the table, frowned in thought, then got up and fetched a fourth bowl that Harry unquestioningly filled. With only a little coaxing they talked Kimmy into joining them at the table.

The soup tasted just as delicious as it had smelled. Conversation at the table was light and casual, and Miranda was certain she was a third (or technically fourth) wheel as the only non-magical person present and unable to participate in the bulk of their talk, but it was all in all a pleasant lunch. Harry certainly seemed more relaxed than he had all day yesterday; perhaps he'd just needed some time to adjust to the Granger house. Hermione was glowing; she kept complimenting Harry on his cooking, enough that the boy started to blush and beg off the constant praise. Miranda couldn't help but throw in her own compliments to the chef. Kimmy slurped her soup and tracked her eyes mildly between those present at the table.

When they were finished Harry automatically stood and began to clear the table.

"And what do you think you're doing, young man?" Miranda playfully scolded.

Apparently the 'playful' didn't come across as clearly as she'd intended, because Harry froze with two empty bowls in his hands. "Uh… the dishes?" he answered warily.

Miranda, refusing to address the way Harry had tensed, stood. "Nonsense. Leave those, I'll tend to them when I get home this evening."

Harry seemed torn between wanting to do as told and doing what came second nature. "I don't mind, really."

"After all the trouble you went to to make lunch, I insist," Miranda said with an overt smile to try and soften the reaction she kept receiving.

"But it's a mess!" Harry yelped, then went immediately quiet and cast his eyes about the kitchen in something almost approaching desperate despair. It was a mess, but not a disaster by any standards.

"It's okay, Harry," Hermione said, and Miranda looked at once toward her daughter. There was a placating, heavy, wise weight to her words. She nodded at Harry meaningfully. "You don't have to."

Harry fidgeted and looked down at the bowls in his hands helplessly.

Hermione rose and gathered up the two remaining bowls. "I'll do the dishes, I ought to since you were in here making this wonderful meal while I was lying about in my room reading letters, being a right layabout. I wouldn't mind your help, though."

Harry seemed to sag in relief. "Okay."

"Kimmy will help!" Kimmy exclaimed jovially and jumped from the chair. Harry and Hermione went to the sink together and stood, shoulder to shoulder, to tend to the dishes while Miranda left to use to loo.

On her way back to pick up her things and head out she stopped outside the kitchen and looked inside. Things were moving through the air of their own accord, returning to cabinets and the refrigerator as Kimmy put away the unused ingredients. The house elf appeared merry to be absorbed in the house-keeping chore and seem to pay no mind to the two teenagers at the sink. Harry and Hermione were setting aside the bowls and spoons on a drying rack. When Harry reached across Hermione to add the bread knife Hermione caught his forearm. They both stilled. After a second Hermione said softly, "It looks like it's going to leave a scar when it's all healed up."

Harry shrugged. "Well, what's one more?"

Hermione released Harry's arm and the two parted to wipe down the counters in silence.

Miranda frowned to herself then slipped out of the house unnoticed.

* * *

"Can I say it now? You were right."

Harry turned to Hermione with a querulous look on his face. Miranda had left barely half an hour ago to return to work. Harry and Hermione once again were alone in the house. Kimmy had since retreated to her closet quarters after putting away the last of the items left strewn on the counters. Once more that painfully blissful peace had consumed the house. Harry was scared he could grow very attached to this state of being… and that he could fall prey to missing it terribly when his life took another ominous turn. And it would; he had come to accept that his life always turned south.

He had just been putting the last of the vegetable soup leftovers in the fridge when Hermione had blurted her apparent non-sequitur. Harry studied her a moment, thinking he might figure out her meaning. After a second he gave up. "Right about what?"

Hermione slowly smiled at him. "You _are_ impressive."

"Oh," Harry blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Just well trained, really. But it's a sight better to be cooking for you and your mum than the Dursleys."

Hermione's playful, happy expression fell at the mention of Harry's family. She scowled and sighed in annoyance. Though he hated it when people pitied him or felt sorry for him, a small part of Harry liked how riled Hermione got over the Dursleys. She took his treatment at their hands as a personal insult to her, and somehow that made Harry feel safer. Perhaps because he knew Hermione, and that she was a person predisposed to passion. Because he knew that if ever the Dursleys went too far, if ever they committed some grossly unforgivable wrong in her eyes against him, a blindly faithful and trusting part of Harry believed nothing would hold Hermione back from tearing his horrible aunt and uncle apart. Figuratively, of course. He could endure more than most from them if he kept in the back of his mind that he was taking the high road, showing them mercy they didn't deserve by bearing it, because if he really wanted to it would be nothing for him to unleash an unstoppable force against them. Unstoppable was a good way to describe Hermione. It was the same sense he got from his godfather, Sirius. Knowledge that he was no longer truly alone or defenseless, because at a word, a cry, a single gesture, and no power on this earth could protect Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley from suffering for every abuse they'd ever heaped on Harry.

Harry started from his own thoughts when he noticed Hermione was shaking. He took an immediate step closer. "Hermione? What's wrong?"

Hermione's jaw was clenched tightly. He hadn't seen her that angry since she slugged Malfoy in the nose. "How can you cook so well and yet come back from summer term every year nearly a stone lighter? Why need to put back on weight lost if you can do this?" Hermione's trembling, furious voice was proof that she knew the answer already.

"Because they don't let me eat it," Harry answered anyway.

Hermione's eyes glistened with furious tears. She seethed, her fists clenched, her lips pinched against fury. She was still trembling. Harry knew if it were him, he would have already lost control of his magic. Someone would have blown up or something would have broken.

"I _hate_ them," Hermione hissed… hissed so lowly and menacingly that Harry wondered if he'd heard it as parseltongue.

Hermione took a breath. "I absolutely hate them, Harry. Sometimes I'm not sure who I hate more… Voldemort or the Dursleys."

Until she said it, he might have said it himself. Hearing it come from her, however, seemed to put his own feeling in a new perspective. And after the graveyard, he could never rank the Dursleys and Voldemort together. "They're not worth it, Hermione. They're dreadful people, but I won't have to live with them forever. Believe me, when I'm of age, I'm out of there and I won't look back. They won't be sorry to see me go, either. Just a few years more, assuming I…" Harry stopped mid-sentence. He somehow felt he shouldn't speak so much of his mind, not what he'd almost said, at least.

"Assuming?" Hermione pressed.

Harry cringed. "Assuming I live that long."

Hermione's eyes widened then she launched herself at him. He ended up on the receiving end of a vice-like hug. She gripped him as though one or both were physically falling. What surprised him most was how tightly he held her in return.

"Don't _say_ that! You are _not_ going to die!" she said huskily against his shoulder.

He wanted to argue that she couldn't know that, couldn't promise he wouldn't, but he couldn't bring himself to do it to her. She knew it all already, anyway.

It seemed they stood in the middle of the kitchen locked in an embrace forever. With no one to interrupt them, nothing to mark the minutes, there was nothing to make them move apart. As though to be like this, holding on tightly, was the natural state and it would require a force of nature to separate them. The only change across the dragging minutes was that the painful, desperate grip they both maintained loosened, became tender and soft, and they stood there a long time just wrapped together. Hermione's head on his shoulder, his face half-buried in her bushy hair, it began to seem they'd always been that way, would always be that way.

Considering everything, Harry ardently wished it could always be that way. With a sigh of resignation when he acknowledged it couldn't be, he turned his head and further burrowed his face into the thick comfort of Hermione's hair.

"Harry?" Hermione said faintly, her voice still muffled against his shirt. She turned her head slightly and her breath washed against the skin of his neck.

Harry shivered. "Yeah?"

Hermione didn't lift her head as she said, each word a new warm rush on his throat, "Do me a favor? _After_ you defeat Voldemort, when you leave the Dursleys once and for all… let me be there, and let me tell them off."

Harry didn't linger on the fact that Hermione seemed to believe, as he secretly did, that it would be before the end of Hogwarts when the final showdown with Voldemort happened. That he would not escape facing Voldemort again, and that somehow it was left to him, an underage wizard, to stop a dark wizard that no one else so far had been able to. It seemed inescapable, Harry's cruel fate. Instead he focused only on that fire in Hermione that made her forever and always his champion. He squeezed her and let that hug tell her everything he didn't know how to put into words. "I promise; I look _forward_ to seeing that."

Hermione laughed and nuzzled his neck with her nose. That stomach-flip returned with a vengeance and Harry pulled away. Hermione stepped back and wiped at her face; he hadn't even realized her tears of fury had actually fallen.

"Well, um… what would you like to do now?" Hermione asked.

He shrugged. "Dunno. What do you want to do?"

Hermione bit her lip, as though reluctant to truthfully answer.

"Well, what would you normally do if I weren't here?"

Hermione looked away, insecurity crept into her features, and she answered meekly. "Homework." She wouldn't meet his eyes, for some reason brought down a notch by the confession. Then Harry remembered what Ron had said when he heard about Harry going home to the Grangers for the summer. '_Won't be as much fun as the Burrow, I'm sure it'll be lots of books and you'll probably be made to do _homework_.'_ He saw how the crestfallen look on Hermione's face now was very similar to the wounded look that had etched into the lines of her face at Ron's thoughtless comment. Not that Ron and noticed what he'd done. She was afraid she was only proving Ron right, ruining Harry's summer with her bookworm ways, falling short just for being who she was. Ron's unwittingly callous words were hurting Hermione even now.

Harry decided he'd have to have a talk with Ron. This certainly wasn't the first time in his years of bickering and fighting with Hermione that he'd hit home and hurt her feelings. That wasn't right, they were supposed to be friends.

Nor was it right now how Hermione looked smaller, weaker, as she waited for Harry to take Ron's side.

He wouldn't; he hadn't when Ron said it at Hogwarts. He didn't find homework _necessarily_ vile or repugnant. He only really despised it when it cut into Quidditch practice time, or when it was from Snape. In fact, during summer it was something of a retreat for him when his aunt and uncle would forbid even the mention of magic, but in a textbook he could remember what he had to go back to when term began. Then, he regarded it as a promise, a reminder, a light to cling to as he endured his home life. Granted he didn't enjoy homework, but it certainly wasn't the dastardly chore Ron believed it was. And if it was with Hermione… well, homework with her had always been more bearable. If Ron had just shut his mouth now and then during their group study sessions in the library and the common room he might have taken note of the same humor and life in Hermione while bent over a book that Harry had noticed. Hermione had such a passion for learning, and even if Harry didn't share it or understand it, that didn't mean it couldn't appreciate the way it lit Hermione from the inside out. She was in her element between the pages of a book, and it was strangely beautiful to see her right where she belonged as if born to it. He wondered if he looked as right on a broom.

"We can do homework if you want," Harry said simply.

Hermione flinched. "No, no, we don't have to."

"Ignore Ron." He surprised himself with the harsh edges to his tone. Apparently it startled Hermione, too. For a second she looked stricken to be caught out agonizing over what Ron had carelessly said. Harry shrugged it off and said, "He's a prat sometimes, you know that. I don't mind if we do homework; we'll have to eventually anyway, right? Besides, when end of holiday comes 'round Ron will be _wishing_ he had you to do homework with."

Hermione smiled and studied him for a moment. If she was looking for insincerity in his face, she'd have to look a very long time. Finally, she took him at his word. She nodded and the first flicker of that light of academia glinted in her brown eyes. "Right then, well, want to gather your things and I'll meet you in the library? I bet we could completely finish with transfiguration by dinnertime."

"Right."


	12. Chapter 12

A routine established itself for the first week of Harry's stay at the Grangers. In the morning Harry and Hermione awoke usually just in time to bid Jake and Miranda farewell when they left for work. Hermione almost made it a point to be up in the morning to say goodbye to her parents, such that Harry thought it was the expected behavior at the Granger household. On Thursday morning he'd woken later than the previous days; he looked at the clock and realized he was about to miss the departure. Frantic, he'd leapt out of bed and run through the hall just in time to catch Jake and Miranda heading out the door, giving Hermione their standard 'call if you need anything, be good, see you later, sweetheart' farewell. Harry, still bleary-eyed because he'd hurried out of his bedroom without grabbing his glasses, had apologized profusely for nearly missing the send off and assured them that it wouldn't happen again. Jake, Miranda, and Hermione had all looked at him a moment before Miranda told him "Harry, dear, you don't have to say goodbye to us when we leave for work. It's summer holiday for you; you may sleep until dinner time if it strikes your fancy." With a flush of embarrassment and even more apologies Harry had learned another lesson about the Grangers… they had routines and habits, but weren't inflexible. After that, Harry didn't feel so bad about sleeping through Jake and Miranda's departure on Friday.

After a lazy breakfast that typically involved either cereal, muffins, or toast and jam, Harry and Hermione usually talked. Nothing more than mere talk. Those were the hours Harry found he enjoyed the most. They sat together, either in one of their rooms or on the living room couch or sometimes in the backyard by the pool. They talked about topics they'd never had cause to broach before. Simple, every-day things that had nothing to do with school or evil wizards. Harry learned things about Hermione he'd never known, and it was astounding because he'd always thought he knew Hermione very well. They talked about first discovering they had magical powers; Harry learned that five-year-old Hermione had caused the entire contents of a bookshelf to end up on the floor in an untrained, unintentional attempt to reach her favorite children's book. Her parents, in a panic, had taken her to a doctor, who'd recommended them to a specialist, who consulted his colleagues, one of whom was a squib and approached the Grangers and told them the cause for little Hermione's strange accidents. Harry found out Hermione's favorite flavor of ice cream was mint chocolate chip. Some day she wanted to visit Salem, Massachusetts, in the United States and troll through the libraries for authentic documents of the witch trials. Despite her assertions to the contrary, she actually knew a lot about Quidditch… and that she knew so much because of Harry's involvement and her desire to understand the sport he loved so much. She had a recurring dream about being the last person on earth. As a little girl she fought to the point of tears trying to braid her hair down so it wasn't a bushy, wild mop. Her favorite part of Christmas was the lights on the tree. Little things. So many little things completely apart from school that Harry found most fascinating about her, when he'd thought she was quite possibly the most interesting person already. He tried to reciprocate, tell Hermione as much about himself as she'd told him about her, but there was no way to barter fairly. The person he started with wasn't as rich as Hermione, he didn't have as much to give, his life was flat and pale by comparison. What wasn't a void was more than likely painful. Even still, she always listened intently, smiled and seemed to appreciate the pathetic little he could give. She seemed to enjoy their talks when it was his turn to share, maybe even half as much as Harry enjoyed listening to her.

Around lunchtime they would go inside and Harry would make lunch. It was always ready by the time Miranda got home. The Granger women became quite enamored of Harry's culinary skills; Miranda seemed to warm considerably toward him with each lunch spent with the children. It became a jest that Harry was going to put the pounds on the Granger girls before the summer was through. Harry found he enjoyed the task more than he ever had or ever thought he would with such openly appreciative recipients. He honestly liked pleasing them, especially Hermione. They'd both insist he didn't have to go to the trouble for them, honestly tried to convince him to stop making them lunch every day, but he kept on because he liked doing something willingly for people he cared about. It was worlds different from being forced to do it by and for people he hated. When Hermione and Miranda both seemed to figure that out they stopped trying to discourage him; they only showed their appreciation even more.

After Miranda left to return to work Harry and Hermione would retire to the library to do homework. They made incredible progress on the list of assignments handed out for the summer holiday, completing tasks far faster than Harry ever would have trying to get them done at Privet Drive. They were averaging a class an evening. Potions took two evenings. When Jake and Miranda returned from work they put their homework aside and sat in the living room with Jake listening to the stories of the day while Miranda cooked dinner. Half of the time, Harry, still somewhat nervous around Jake and far more comfortable with Miranda (perhaps because of their daily lunches together), would retreat to the kitchen and help Miranda and Kimmy. When Miranda discovered Kimmy was quite the chef herself she accepted the house elf's help with dinner (much to Kimmy's delight). They all ate dinner together, Harry and Hermione cleared the table and did the dishes, and after that it was a free-for-all before bedtime with no pre-determined activity to fill up their evening hours. Sometimes they watched the telly with Jake and Miranda, sometimes they finished up some last bit of homework left over from that afternoon, sometimes they went to their separate bedrooms and whiled away the time before bed with their own activities. It was all so very normal.

It was, without contest, the best summer of Harry's life. More than once he wondered if, somehow, the year previous had been his toll to have this summer. He fought against the idea of thinking it was worth it, because Cedric deserved better.

* * *

Hermione woke on Saturday morning to Crookshanks flicking his tail under her nose. She blindly swatted at it and tried to roll over and go back to sleep. Crookshanks crawled lightly over her and tickled her lips with his whiskers.

"Crukshnks," Hermione grumbled and finally cracked her eyes open to peer at her familiar. The cat sat primly on her bedspread and looked at her, tail twitching at the tip. She rubbed at her eyes and yawned. It was because of her cat that she unerringly woke every morning in time to bid farewell to her parents before they left for work. Because after they left Hermione fed her cat. Hermione didn't mind that he got her up early, she liked being able to wish her parents a good day, but he insisted on waking her just as early on Saturday and Sunday when her parents were off.

Hermione rolled on to her back and sighed, eyes closing softly. She entertained some notion of going back to sleep and just hoped Crookshanks wouldn't notice.

A sudden weight on her stomach when the cat leapt on to her dashed that hope.

"A'right, all right, I'm getting up," Hermione grumbled and rolled the cat off as she rose to get out of bed. Crookshanks dropped to the floor, cast her a look of 'I know you did that on purpose' but went to the door and waited expectantly on Hermione to tie back her hair in a messy ponytail. She opened the door and Crookshanks padded down the hall in front of her, bushy tail a signpost to follow all the way to the kitchen just in case she forget where she was supposed to be going.

When she shuffled bare-foot into the kitchen she saw her parents already up. Miranda was sitting at the table reading the newspaper while Jake was at the counter fixing coffee. Hermione yawned again, scratched at one of her flannel pajama-clad legs, then moved further into the room.

"Good morning, Hermione," Jake said and glanced with a smirk at Crookshanks who jumped on to the counter and shifted his feet impatiently. "He doesn't quite grasp weekends, does he?"

Hermione snorted. "He _does_, he just wants his breakfast on time."

Jake went to the table and joined his wife, stealing the sports section of the newspaper, while Hermione poured a scoop of cat food into a ceramic dish and set it on the counter for Crookshanks. The cat hunkered down and happily began to eat. Hermione went to the refrigerator and removed a carton of orange juice.

"Do you and Harry have any plans today?" Miranda asked. Her voice sounded purposeful rather than casual and it made Hermione turn to her mother with a glass in one hand and the juice in the other. "No, why?"

Miranda's mouth twitched uncomfortably and she ran her hands over the newspaper section before her as though to inject a nonchalant manner to her words. "Well, I just thought maybe he might like to go into town and we could go shopping?" She looked at Hermione with a careful smile, "I noticed most of his clothes are a bit… well… tatty."

Jake harrumphed into his mug, lowered it, and commented after a swallow, "Tent-like, too, as long as we're on the subject."

Miranda cast Jake a slightly reproving, 'behave yourself' look. Hermione had set her glass and the carton on the countertop next to Crookshanks (who looked up, annoyed, and shifted aside before continuing to eat). She sighed and hoped she wasn't betraying Harry in any way as she said, "Well, most of his clothes are cast-offs from his cousin, Dudley, who's about a hundred pounds heavier than Harry is."

Miranda frowned unhappily but didn't pursue that detail further. "Do you think he'd like to get some new ones? If it's a matter of money, you know, we could pay for them."

Hermione's eyes cut to her father. It was obvious that Miranda had grown fond of Harry, and that Harry had become increasingly more at ease with her as well, but Jake and Harry still had a way to go before they were likewise comfortable together. They were cordial, friendly, there wasn't any hostility of any kind, but it was still mostly being polite. They didn't know each other well enough to feel as relaxed together. Hermione could only think it was the time alone with herself and Miranda during lunch that had brought her best friend and mother closer quicker.

For that reason, she didn't question her mother's offer, but wasn't sure how her father would take to the idea of clothing Harry.

Jake, however, had wisely chosen not to take a side on the issue. He merely glanced at Miranda, considered her a moment, then shrugged and looked back at the sports page.

Hermione turned her eyes back to Miranda. It felt awkward talking about Harry's finances with her parents at the breakfast table while Harry slept. "It's not really about money… I've never asked about it specifically, but I know Harry's fairly well off."

Jake glanced up at Hermione and raised his eyebrows.

Hermione frowned, titled her head while fingering the formica, and gave a stilted shrug. "His parents left him all they had."

Jake's expression turned solemn and grave, as though unwilling to pass any manner of judgment on that. He looked again toward Miranda. Hermione followed suit.

"Well, then," Miranda said with an even greater tone of discomfort. "Think he'd care for some new clothes?"

"Maybe. I could ask him."

Jake quipped, "If he ever wakes up."

"Oh, hush, Jake. Hermione, dear, I had some errands to run today, I was going to leave in about an hour; if you'd ask him he's welcome to come along and we can stop by the clothing department."

"Okay, I'll go ask," Hermione left her juice untouched and walked down the hall to Harry's door. She stopped to listen for any sounds to indicate he was already awake, then she tapped lightly on the door. "Harry?" she called gently. No answer. She opened the door and carefully peeked inside.

Light from the open window bathed the room in a soft, morning glow. Hedwig was perched on top of her cage. After a week, Hermione was finally getting used to seeing Harry's owl coal-black. Hedwig had stopped snapping at Kimmy every time the house elf came near her, too. The owl blinked brilliant amber eyes (the black really did make her eyes stand out) at Hermione then resettled on her perch to doze off. Hermione looked to the bed and saw Harry's head of black hair peeking out from the covers, the bedspread draped over the curled shape of his body.

Hermione tip-toed closer and couldn't stop the strange rush of warmth that started at her stomach and moved up her chest when she saw his face. He was sound asleep, dark eyelashes resting against his cheeks, his wild hair even messier without the benefit of the morning's first combing match. The lines of his mouth were relaxed, a sight so rare for Harry, just as the tension that seemed always a part of his countenance was gone.

Hermione stood a moment just watching him. It seemed criminal to wake him. Seeing him like this reawakened that same protective beast in her that had emerged after the Triwizard Tournament. The force inside her that made her feel duty-bound to shield Harry from their judgmental classmates, the reasonless animal that suddenly made facing down Dumbledore and _demanding_ of him a trite task. Harry spurred wild, scary things in her. And whatever that thing inside her, it had a definite possessive streak. She wanted to keep Harry to herself, secret him away, because he was safe with her. She couldn't be certain of his welfare anywhere else but in her care. No one could care about him like she did, therefore with her was the only proper place for him to be. And she would challenge anyone who thought differently. Right now, watching him sleep, Hermione wasn't even amenable to sharing him with Molly Weasley. She had her own boys to tend to, more than enough, let Hermione have this one.

Harry's breathing hitched and he sucked in a breath. It was almost a gasp, and he shifted.

Hermione worried it was the signs of a nightmare.

"Harry?" she thoughtlessly ran her fingers through his hair. He shifted again, more actively, and his breath left in a rush. A faint flush of color moved from his neck to his cheeks.

Hermione, concerned, bent closer and said louder, "Harry, wake up."

Harry breathed raggedly again then his eyes fluttered open. He looked up and met her eyes, for a moment glazed and unfocused, then he started and his brow furrowed. "Mmione?"

Hermione blushed and pulled her hand away. She knew he was just groggy and it made his speech sloppy, but still it quickened in her stomach. "You okay?"

Harry blinked, still sleep-dopey, then he cleared his throat and the pink in his face began to fade. "Yeah… um… what is it?"

Hermione moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. Harry didn't protest; he moved over to make room, sat up, and settled the covers double over his lap. Hermione studied his face a moment and couldn't stop the smile that crept up. His hair was sticking up everywhere; he looked quite ruffled and dazed. She fetched his glasses from the nightstand and handed them to him. With a grateful smile he put them on and at last focused on her.

"Mum was going to go into town in a bit and she wondered if you'd like to go too and get some new clothes."

Harry took a moment to process that, then he self-consciously rubbed a hand through his hair. "Oh. Yeah, I suppose, could do with it, couldn't I?"

"Okay, then. She said she'd be leaving in about an hour, so you best get ready."

Harry nodded but didn't move to get out of bed. Hermione got up to leave and only as she was closing the door behind her did she hear him move to get dressed.


	13. Chapter 13

Hermione found it very easy to get lost in a book. In text she was all her strength, nothing of the gangly, ugly, unpopular, and at times insecure girl. She was her mind, and that was her greatest power. It was an indulgence to surrender to it. Admittedly, sometimes she escaped to it. It grew from that into an ability to hone in so singularly on what she was reading that the rest of the world was background noise to the words.

She was sitting on her bed reading a thick, heavy tome propped on her lap. Crookshanks was curled on her pillow behind and to the right of her, dozing with legs folded tight beneath him until he looked like a ginger ball of fur with slits for eyes and a piggish pink nose.

She'd completely lost track of the time, so when a soft knock came at her door she started as though someone had kicked it. Crookshanks popped open his eyes when her jump made the mattress move, but after a half-second survey merely closed his eyes again.

"Yes?" Hermione called.

The door opened and Harry stuck his head inside, his eyes searching the room and quickly settling on her.

"Harry! Back so soon?"

Harry frowned in bewilderment. "Soon? We were gone three hours."

Hermione glanced at her clock. He was right; she'd done it again. She laid her hands on the open pages of the guilty book. "Oh. _Three hours_?"

Harry sagged at the reminder and walked into her room. With dragging steps he crossed to her bed, fell forward, and lay perfectly still across the foot. Crookshanks roused again at the second jostling in less than five minutes and turned a glower on Harry (who, unable to see Crookshanks, was completely unmoved by the kneazle's displeasure).

Hermione snickered. "I'm so sorry, Harry." She suspected the snickering negated her words as far as sympathy was concerned.

Harry mumbled something but it was muffled by the comforter into which he had his face pressed.

Hermione snorted, leaned forward, and pushed on his shoulder.

Harry rolled over on to his back. "I said I hope I don't have to do that again."

"I imagine not. Mum just hated seeing you wear those dingy old clothes of Dudley's. How much did you get?"

Harry raked both hands through his hair as though to dishevel himself enough would erase the tameness of the outing. "Not nearly half as your mum would have liked. But I don't _need_ that much! I mean, your mum's really nice and probably not nearly as… 'enthusiastic' as Ron's mum would've been, but three hours, Hermione! I _almost_ feel sorry for Dudley when Aunt Petunia takes him clothes shopping. They're always gone the entire day. To think I used to be even the _tiniest_ jealous about that!" With a sigh Harry closed his eyes and Hermione watched in fascination as his features relaxed, his mouth softened, his whole body seemed to unwind and lay prone and loose in what might have appeared to be a precursor to sleep.

Crookshanks picked his way across the bed and sniffed delicately at Harry's face.

Harry screwed up his face and waved the cat away. "Crookshanks." The cat persisted, whiskers twitching against Harry's nose and chin.

"Did you and Mum stop for ice cream?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

Harry cracked open one eye at her while he continued to push at Crookshanks and seemed to question how she knew. "Yeah."

Hermione smiled. "Mum usually takes me after shopping, consolation prize I suppose; Crookshanks smells it on your breath. He loves ice cream."

"Well, next time I'll bring you some," Harry said. Crookshanks seemed to accept that and lay down on the bed beside Harry's shoulder. Harry absently pet the cat as he glanced over and only then noticed the book Hermione had on her lap. "What are you reading?"

Hermione closed the book and set it aside. "Oh, just something I checked out of the library before we left for holiday. Harry… I had an idea I wanted to run past you. Mind you, it's fairly stupid…"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Hermione, I don't honestly believe you're capable of stupid."

Hermione tried to quell the faint blush that threatened to tint her cheeks. "Well, I was just thinking… I thought maybe it'd be a good idea if we exercised this summer."

Harry frowned in silent question for her to elaborate, still idly petting the dozing cat.

Hermione continued, "I was thinking what we might do to… you know… prepare ourselves." She stopped and looked pointedly at Harry. There was seriousness in her tone and look that he interpreted immediately. He stopped petting Crookshanks and his body tensed, intent on her as he waited. He was listening closely now.

"Obviously, since we're underage we can't actually practice any spells or hexes or anything, not without getting into loads of trouble. So I was trying to think of what we might do that wouldn't require magic. That's when I thought of getting fit." Hermione ducked her head and looked bashful. "Okay, honestly, I thought about _me_ getting in shape; you're already rather well off there. You have Quidditch and, well, much as a balls up it was, the tournament this year did keep you physically conditioned. I, on the other hand, spend all my spare time reading or doing homework. I'm not strong or fast, and I might need to be. And working the body works the mind, right?

"It would give us something to do with our days, too. We're nearly done with homework and when we finish it'll leave our entire evenings free. I was thinking maybe some running to build endurance, and I know Dad has a set of weights in the garage from a few years back when he and some of his mates from work thought they'd start their own rugby team. Complete rubbish, too, didn't last a month; just try to imagine a bunch of dentists playing rugby. But I'm sure he'd let us use the weights to trim up." Hermione took a breath and eyed Harry cautiously. "Well, what do you think?"

Harry mulled it over honestly, but it only took him three seconds. "I think it's a good idea."

"You do?"

Harry nodded. "Being the smallest contestant in the tournament really made me realize how much size and strength _can_ be an advantage. Not the end all, of course, but it does help. I think we should."

Hermione brightened. "Oh, I was sure you'd think it was a silly idea." She jumped off the bed in a burst of energy, the compulsion to act, to set her plan in motion, "I'll go ask my dad now if he'd let us borrow them. Of course, we won't say why we really want to toughen up; I expect we could tell him you wanted to stay in condition for Quidditch next year and I just decided to join you. He wouldn't think twice about a bloke staying in shape for a sport."

"All right," Harry said, then he started and sat up, "oh, I almost forgot, umm…" he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a tightly wadded plastic bag. He tensed and seemed to regard the package awkwardly. "This, uh… your mum." He held it out to her like it might explode if he didn't pass it off.

Hermione took the wadded bag but looked at it almost dismissively; it had nothing to do with her current project and she was loathe to actually take time away from her present mission. "What is it?"

Harry looked off to the side. "A bathing suit." He shifted on the bed. "Your mum said she figured your suits from last year would be too small."

Hermione frowned and debated looking inside the bag. The way Harry suddenly looked uncomfortable, wouldn't look at her, wouldn't even dare to look at the bag containing the swimsuit, did not imbue Hermione with confidence. She didn't want to think about how wretchedly ugly the thing must be. She quickly chose to ignore it for the time being. She tossed it on to her bed and pretended to completely forget it, "Okay, well, I'll leave that to later. Come on, let's go talk to my dad about his free weights."

Harry rose and followed Hermione out of her room, looking better to no longer have the offending swimsuit in his possession. In the hall they bumped into Miranda coming out of her bedroom, who looked in an inordinately good mood after the shopping expedition. "Hermione! Did you see the suit I got you? I thought you and Harry might like to go swimming this summer."

Hermione plastered on a smile while Harry stopped and went very still and very quiet behind her shoulder. "I love it, Mum, thanks. I did need a new one."

"I thought as much. And, Harry, I'm sorry if I was a bit much today."

"Oh, uh… that's okay, Missus Granger."

Miranda switched to addressing her daughter with a playful light in her eyes. "Once he started trying on clothes that actually fit I got a bit overzealous, I suppose." Hermione glanced at Harry and saw him cringe. Miranda, heedless, continued, "Don't know if you realize it, dear, but when you get past those ratty old clothes of his cousin's he's a good-looking boy."

Harry was blushing furiously.

"I know," Hermione said matter-of-factly.

"I thought he could do with a fair bit more than we came away with, but Harry started looking a bit flighty. Thought it best to call it a day before he ran for it."

Hermione giggled. "Probably a good decision; Harry's a fast runner. If he made a break for it you'd never catch him.

"Mum, d'you know where Dad is?"

"Oh, in the back yard I think."

"Right then, come on, Harry," Hermione bade and headed down the hall. Harry wordlessly fell in step behind her, still embarrassed from the confrontation with Miranda and content to meekly trail after his best friend.

Before they hit the kitchen Hermione glanced back at him. "Did she make you buy new swim shorts, too?"

Harry, oddly reticent to discuss swim wear ('Merlin,' Hermione thought, 'how hideous is the suit Mum got me?'), shook his head. "No, I still have my trunks from the second task."

Hermione nodded then commented after a second of contemplation, "Well, actually, the idea of swimming isn't a bad one. Do you know what a good aerobic workout swimming is?"

Harry smirked. "Just promise there aren't any grindylows in your pool and I'll be happy."

* * *

"Do you think," Harry asked drowsily, "that it's possible for Binns to be haunting his homework assignment?"

Hermione looked up from her History of Magic textbook and nearly finished essay scroll. She and Harry had been working on their History of Magic homework since breakfast. They were sitting on opposite sides of the table located in the small but cozy library of the Granger residence; the library that doubled as an office complete with personal computer and mandible models of perfectly aligned teeth off to one side.

She frowned and looked at the parchment before Harry as though looking for evidence of possession. "Why?"

"Because this assignment is just as boring as he is; I can barely keep my eyes open." Harry dropped his head on to the table top, pressed his cheek into the open pages before him, and let his eyes slide shut.

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Oh, honestly, Harry. We're nearly finished."

"And my arms are sore," Harry added without opening his eyes, as though weary muscles would excuse him.

Hermione huffed faintly and completed another sentence. "Please, there isn't a chance you're sorer than I. I don't know if I've ever lifted a weight before yesterday, I'm sure to be much worse off than you."

Harry's head popped up. "Oh, really?" he asked sarcastically, closed his History of Magic book, picked it up, and held it out to her. On reflex Hermione took it with one hand and turned it over a time or two before giving Harry an 'are you daft?' look.

Harry crossed his arms on the tabletop. "See? You don't need to have lifted weights. Those books weigh a stone easy, and you're always toting half a dozen of them."

Hermione set the book down and sighed. "We'll never finish at this rate."

"We have all summer, Hermione!" Harry grumbled.

"You're starting to sound like Ron."

"Oiy, I'm not that bad."

Hermione tapped the end of her quill against the parchment before her and scowled down thoughtfully at it. Harry sagged back in his chair. She chewed on her bottom lip then looked across at Harry again, this time calculating. Harry watched her warily, eyebrows rising with every passing second of silence.

Finally, Hermione put her quill down. "All right, let's take a break. I _do_ want to get back to this today, though. It's our last subject, Harry, and if we finish today then we'll be completely done with homework for the holiday. I really think we ought to aim for that."

"Break sounds good."

Hermione almost painfully pushed her open book toward the center of the table in a gesture of dismissal. "Kimmy was making cookies earlier, I'll go nick us some."

Harry smiled. "Yeah, cookies sound much better than History of Magic."

She fought the urge to scowl and somehow it turned into an eye-roll and smile. "I'll meet you in your room in a few then."

Both rose and headed for the library door. Harry turned down the hall toward the bedrooms, Hermione toward the kitchen.

The kitchen was in impeccable order, the norm as of late (despite Miranda's best efforts to discourage both, she couldn't seem to keep Harry and Kimmy from cleaning up, almost to the point that every time her back was turned either Harry or the house elf was picking up around the place). A tray sat atop the counter near the oven with perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies awaiting consumption.

Hermione went to the cabinet, got out a plate, and began to transfer cookies to it. She glanced up and looked out the back window to the yard. Her mother was out working in the garden, on her knees and pulling at weeds. Hermione smiled. Her mother would love to be a regular Madam Sprout, but the truth was she'd never quite got the hang of horticulture. The garden was more of a side-hobby (and looked it) than anything.

Crookshanks was sitting off the one side of the garden and gardener, unusually interested in the menial task. The cat's tail flipped from one side to the other of its fluffy orange body, ears pricked and fixed on the unmanageable backyard jungle.

As Hermione watched Miranda tug and glower at weeds as though personally insulted, she froze when her mother suddenly lurched back away from the leafy patch as though struck.

Hermione dropped the cookie in her hand, rushed to the back door, and hurried to where her mother was getting to her feet, wiping grass and dirt from her clothes. "What is it, Mum?"

Miranda wiped her hair out of her face. "Stand back, Hermione. Better yet, fetch me the hoe."

Seeing that her mother was unhurt, Hermione looked toward the seemingly innocuous garden. "Why, what's wrong?"

Miranda bent down and peered into the garden plants without approaching too close. "A ruddy snake. Just get me the hoe, dear, I'll kill it. No worries."

Hermione's eyes widened with a sudden thought. "Oh, wait, don't kill it, let me get Harry."

"Harry? I'm perfectly capable of dispatching it myself," Miranda was calling after her daughter as Hermione sprinted back toward the house.

Hermione burst into the kitchen and called out, "HARRY!"

After a second Harry appeared from the hallway, looking startled. "What?"

"Come outside a moment, please? Mum's cornered a snake in the garden. Do you think you could coax it out?"

Harry looked at her a moment then shrugged. "I'll try."

Hermione and Harry met up with Miranda in front of the garden. Miranda was still searching from a safe distance for the intruding serpent but she straightened to look at Harry. "No, no, I can handle this, Harry. Stay back; it's a right nasty thing, went after me and nearly got me. Come away from there, Harry, I wouldn't want either of you bitten."

Hermione tugged on her mother's arm to hold her in place. "Let Harry, Mum. He's a parselmouth."

"He's a what?" Miranda asked as Harry stepped carefully toward the garden, senses alert to the noises from within.

"A parselmouth. It means he can talk to snakes."

"Good gracious!" Miranda gasped.

"Shhh." Hermione chided, and both women fell silent and watched.

Harry knelt down at the edge of the garden and cocked his head, listening for the soft, sibilant notes of snake-language. Crookshanks rose from his sentry post a few paces away and stalked back and forth slowly, still watching the proceedings with particular interest. Hermione frowned and considered moving to collect her pet when a low, flowing sound just reached her ears and made her halt. It was coming from Harry as he sought to make contact with the hidden snake. Hermione had never told her best friend just how fascinating it was to hear him speak parseltongue… she'd only heard it once before, but hearing it again now made her heart jump into her throat in surprise and awe at the sound. She strained to hear every hissing rise and fall of his voice, desperately wishing she knew what he was saying.

Hermione startled when she saw movement near her foot but looked down only to see that Kimmy, in her dog guise, had arrived on the scene. She was watching Harry alertly, tensed and primed to jump in and come to his aid. Though Hermione had thought she had complete confidence in Harry, she found she was relieved that Kimmy was on hand. She returned to watching Harry squat down at the edge of the garden and call out gently to the animal still concealed within.

Miranda squeaked and held Hermione's shoulder tightly when a sleek, narrow head emerged from the squash plants and flicked a forked tongue at Harry. The brown snake stared directly at Harry with lifeless black eyes, tongue a darting red dash of color, and it gave a low hiss.

Harry hissed back, a bit louder, his voice still gentle and soft but stronger and clearer. He sat down and it seemed almost like a show of good will that he stand down from a stance of easy escape. The snake regarded Harry closely then emerged farther from the garden to move toward him. Kimmy took a single step closer then stopped and waited with everyone else. Crookshanks had also stopped pacing, his every sense locked on the snake.

Harry conversed a moment with the snake, glanced up at Crookshanks a few feet away, then lowered his hand to the ground in undeniable invitation and beckoning.

Miranda moved to grab Harry's shoulder and pull him back but Hermione held her mother fast.

The brown snake only waited a beat before calmly crawling up Harry's arm.

Harry looked toward Hermione and Miranda and said, "She was just in there hiding from Crookshanks."

"Crookshanks!" Hermione scolded the cat. Crookshanks, unperturbed and entirely unapologetic, sat down and began to clean one of his front legs.

Harry carefully rose to his feet with the snake draped on his arm and spanning from palm to crook of his elbow. "I'll just move her somewhere else. She didn't mean you any harm, Missus Granger, you just startled her, that's all."

"_I_ startled _her_?"

Harry smiled, and it was as though he were sharing a joke with the snake rather than either of the women facing him. The serpent curled the tip of its tail around Harry's fingers.

Miranda shuddered. "Well, just go put it down, please? I don't like seeing you stand there holding that thing."

Harry nodded and carried the snake away from the garden. As he passed Crookshanks, the cat came to attention and turned to look after Harry, as though considering following to pounce on the snake when it was put down, then the cat seemed to decide the task beneath him and ambled off toward the house.

Kimmy sat down and scratched at her ear, half an ear still on Harry as he went to the edge of the property and let the snake go in a crack between the slats of the privacy fence.

Miranda breathed a noticeable sigh of relief when Harry turned to head back with the snake gone. Kimmy lay down on the ground and watched Harry in something closer to gentle bemusement, not terribly unlike the expressions Dumbledore often wore.

When Harry rejoined the Granger women he suddenly seemed to realize that he'd come back to something of a spotlight, one he hadn't noticed before when he'd been dealing with the snake. He tucked his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet.

"Well, thank you for getting rid of that snake," Miranda said in a voice still holding the undercurrents of tension, "but I'd prefer you not do that again. I just dread to think of you being hurt handling one of those things."

"All right, Missus Granger, but she really wasn't… well, if she'd been verbally abusive I wouldn't have tried to pick her up, but she was a friendly enough…" Harry trailed when he saw the look of bewilderment on Miranda's face. He stopped and decided he should stop before he got any weirder in the eyes of Hermione's mother. "Yes, ma'am, I won't do it again."

"You don't _judge_ him for talking to snakes?" Hermione said to her mother, aghast, in a tone of undisguised malice and disbelief.

Miranda, as well as Harry, was surprised by the defensive rancor in the way Hermione addressed her mother. Miranda blinked at her daughter, as though too shocked by her outburst to decide if she should discipline her daughter for using it. "No," Miranda replied lowly, looking as though the emotion she was settling on was confusion, "I don't. It's not the talking to snakes that upsets me, dear, it's the picking them up."

"Oh," Hermione blushed and looked away. Her gaze skittered momentarily to Harry's and she looked even more embarrassed. "Sorry, Mum… I shouldn't have… it's just, at school…"

At that moment Harry realized what had spurred Hermione's sudden ire, recognized it was on his behalf that she spoke out so, and because it was in his defense he felt obligated to show his appreciation for her concern by at least smoothing things over between Hermione and her mother.

"Just some people at Hogwarts think that me talking to snakes means I'm evil," Harry provided. Hermione looked at him, wide-eyed. Miranda looked a long moment at Harry.

"Which is absolute rubbish," Hermione said, "but Harry's had some trouble with it." She gave a shrug and nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

For a second Miranda looked absolutely thrown. Then she merely looked resolute. "Honestly, how anyone could think you're evil baffles me," Miranda stated point-blank. Her voice lost the edge and clip it had held since being startled by the snake and it was the luncheons voice when she said softly to Harry, "You've been nothing but a pleasant young man the whole time you've been here; I can't fathom how anyone could think you were a bad person."

Harry smiled laconically. "Thanks. You're actually in the minority, more people disagree with you than agree with you, but what you think matters more, so… yeah, thanks." Harry became increasingly uncomfortable as he talked, and by the end of his sentence he was rubbing at the back of his neck and watching the grass.

"Well, then!" Hermione jumped in, so abruptly and loudly in an effort to spare Harry and redirect conversation that Miranda's head whipped around to look at Hermione and Kimmy jumped up to her feet. "Come on, Harry! We have homework to finish. We best get to it."

Harry deflated. "Ohhhh… Hermione… come on. One more minute of History of Magic and I might turn evil."

Hermione paused only fleetingly at the way Harry joked about what seconds ago had been a very awkward, serious topic. Then she went with it. "Oh, you won't, you haven't it in you, and we're nearly done, Harry."

Harry seemed to recognize a lost battle from the onset and looked toward Miranda with open appeal in his eyes.

"Hermione, honey, you have the rest of the summer to finish school work."

The look on Hermione's face said 'that's no excuse', but she restrained herself from blurting those precise words. "I know, Mum, but… well, it's our last subject and we're more than halfway through and…"

"Yes, dear, but couldn't you finish it later this evening?"

"I suppose."

Miranda glanced at Harry, saw his appreciative smile, then turned back to Hermione, "Why don't you take Harry down to the park?"

Hermione, whose head was hung in dejection at having to put off a nearly-complete task, looked up at her mother and her expression changed. She looked fired up again, excited and eager Hermione. "Oh! Would you care to, Harry?"

The park sounded loads better than the seventh century troll war and he quickly said, "You bet."

"And you two can just do your homework later tonight," Miranda added as a concession to Hermione's studious nature. Hermione seemed appeased, especially once this excursion to the park was mentioned as a substitute activity.

"Okay."

Miranda patted her daughter's shoulder, turned her head toward Harry and gave him a wink, then left the two teens standing together.

"Well, let's go, I'll just grab a book and…"

"Umm… Hermione? If we're going to the park why do you need a book?" Harry asked.

Hermione stopped cold. Her expression was momentarily blank, as though his question beyond rational thought, then her lips parted, her eyebrows knit, and she tensed. The notion of _not_ taking a book obviously hadn't occurred to her. "Oh, um… right. Silly me. Nevermind. Come on, the park's a walk from here."

Harry took up at Hermione's side. Kimmy hurried alongside, clearly intent on accompanying them. They went through the yard gate, cut across the front yard, and Harry dropped back a half-pace from Hermione to let her lead as she started them down the sidewalk away from the Granger house. Kimmy trotted alongside, head turning from side to side, and it looked so much like an average, eager dog on a walk, that Harry marveled at Kimmy's manner, when he knew in fact she was alert for any indication of danger.

Hermione cast a smirk down in Kimmy's direction, clearly having also noted the dog's well-played ruse. "Do you expect she keeps in touch with Dumbledore?"

Kimmy threw a look over her shoulder at them but quickly returned her attention to trotting just ahead of Harry and Hermione.

"Dunno," Harry mused in reply as he kicked a stone in his path with the toe of his shoe. He glanced at Hermione and saw a look of concentration on her face as she looked down intently at the Chihuahua. He knew Hermione well enough to know when she had something on her mind by her expression. "What is it?"

Hermione quickly shook her head. "Nothing. Are you terribly bored, Harry?" she turned her head to look at him and it threw Harry a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we've done an awful lot of homework; I know you said it was okay, but maybe I was a bit… forceful." She blushed ever so slightly, and even if Harry had been disgruntled before he couldn't speak a word against her after that pink flush.

"But we're almost done," he threw back her own words at her.

"We _are_ nearly done, just this last bit of History of Magic, then perhaps we could do something you want to do. Is there anything you'd care to do?"

Harry frowned and they walked in silence a few moments. "Not really, I wouldn't know what to suggest. 'Fun's not a word I normally associate with summer."

Hermione scowled, and it had the Dursleys written all over it.

"And I _have_ had a good time so far. Your parents are really nice, and it's a relief… well, I guess because you're the only one who really knows what happened end of term, it's the farthest I can get from… everything, without cutting off completely. And I always thought that was the hardest part of summer, cutting off completely."

Hermione moved closer to his side and very briefly squeezed his arm. "Oh, I know, Harry. Every summer it's like you just stop existing as little as your aunt and uncle let you send and receive owls, I hate that part of summer."

Harry swallowed and his heart skipped. It wasn't exactly the 'hardest part' he'd meant… or maybe it had been. When he tried to think of how to explain it better there weren't words that would disagree with hers.

As though the moment had passed, Hermione moved back away from Harry and he found breathing easier. "Well, we could go swimming," she suggested.

"Umm… yeah. We could."

"Bit of bad luck that you can't fly here, though. I know you love doing that at the Burrow."

Harry kept meaning to write Ron about that but it continued to slip his mind until Hermione got that look on her face that she wore now. That unworthy, second-rate down-trodden frown.

"I'd probably be flying in Romania with dragons right now if I'd vacationed with the Weasleys, and I _really_ don't fancy that idea. And I wouldn't have been able to fly at the Dursleys' at all. Trust me, Hermione, your home is a huge improvement. You're lucky, you know."

Hermione looked sincerely at him, her eyes barely misted with tears, and it held the agony she felt for him. For every act of neglect, every abuse, every wretched moment of Harry's childhood. Harry wasn't sure he could take her generosity, and he didn't know how to turn it down, either… not from her. He could only offer a half-shrug and immediately afterward looked away; it was an inadequate answer to his early life's miseries and he knew it as well as she.

They continued on in silence until a spread of grass, an open field ringed by benches and trees, came into sight. Children's playground equipment had been erected in various locations, seemingly with no planning, the building as haphazard as the children who would play there.

Hermione's step quickened and Harry, smiling at her enthusiasm, kept pace. Kimmy broke into a slow jog to keep up. There were a handful of children there with their parents, draping and hanging and dangling from the various pieces of brightly-painted equipment. It was almost jarring to see kids playing, so happy and care-free and so amazingly unaware of the danger that had been unleashed on the world only weeks ago. How could an evil that strong exist where joy this pure still cavorted? It was almost obscene, but the children played and their parents watched on proudly.

Hermione clearly had a destination in mind. "I used to love coming here when I was little; before I went off to Hogwarts Mum worked part-time, so she'd come home from the dentists' office a bit after lunchtime, pick me up from day school, and we'd more often than not come here. My favorite was the jungle gym." She had them skirting the playground, keeping to the edge composed of benches and foliage like flanking wolves. Harry and Kimmy followed without protest. "When I was older and allowed to come here on my own, when I wasn't in my room studying I was here.

"Here, this is my spot," she stopped at a weather-beaten, use-worn wooden bench, tucked under the canopy of a maple tree to the right and with shrubberies at the left. It was well-shaded but a bit far from the playground proper… it was just the kind of out-of-the-way retreat Hermione would like.

Hermione turned to Harry and smiled.

Kimmy made a quick circle of the bench with her head down near the ground. When she'd made a circuit she stopped in front of the two teens, sat down, and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"It's a nice park," Harry said, though for the most part he couldn't pry his eyes from the glow suffusing Hermione's face. "I don't think there's anything close to this in Little Whinging."

"It is lovely," Hermione said as she took a seat on the bench like it was her right, as though she'd always owned it. She looked out over the park, lingered on the children playing, her expression one of peaceful reminiscing. "I made the decision to attend Hogwarts here."

Harry was immediately more alert. The decision to attend? To him there'd been no question, no decision to be made, it was almost a force of nature impelling him to go. He couldn't fathom the possibility of _not_ going.

Hermione glanced up at him and saw the bewildered look on his face. "Wasn't it a bit scary for you? When you found out?"

Harry sat down next to Hermione and thought hard. "I don't know. I'm not sure if 'scared' was ever the right word. It was… I didn't really feel I had any other choice but to go to Hogwarts. It was my chance to find someplace I might belong. There wasn't even a second when I considered not going… I thought Hagrid might have had me mistaken with someone else, and I think I _was_ afraid that he was wrong and it would be snatched back before I ever had it, but it was never a matter of convincing me to leave. I had to go."

"I can see how it would be that way for you. It was different for me. I thought I knew where I belonged, I thought I knew where my life would go, I'd even mapped out what schools and universities I'd attend… but there was just the little fact of this magic in me, this ability that made me different and that I could never rightly factor in to my plans. And then I got my letter and I thought 'maybe if I go I can sort this part of me out'. I just wanted that part of me to finally make sense." Hermione paused then looked at him. "When did you know you'd found it? Where you belonged."

"That first time I rode a broom." A smile touched his lips at the mere memory.

Hermione smiled back, remembering that day very well. "For me, it was the first time I cast a spell, the first time I was able to control it. It was right. I knew then that I couldn't pretend I wasn't a witch, that it wasn't just a condition I'd been born with that I could ignore or 'overcome'. It was who I am. And then when you and Ron saved me from the troll… I knew I'd found home."

"Yeah… that too," Harry said as he recalled that first time the three of them faced outlandish danger and come through a trio. It had been the three of them ever since, most definitely a life-changing mishap.

Hermione's brow was knit in thought. "You know, I always felt closer to you in that than I did to Ron. I don't imagine he knows what it's like to search for your identity and have to go to another world to find it. It's an awful lot to ask of children, don't you think?"

"I think it's a lot to ask of anyone."

Hermione nodded. "But then, I wouldn't give up magic for anything. It's given me so much."

He looked at her. "Me too."

They lapsed into a moment's silence and turned to watching the children play.

"I don't want to give up this, either," Hermione said bluntly then she followed it up with a far-away look in her eye. "Can we still have bits of this world, even if we just borrow it? Is that greedy?"

"Not if you want it, Hermione."

She smiled to herself, slow and wise, and she turned to look at him. "Promise me we'll be sitting here on this bench together same time next year?"

Harry froze. He knew what she was really asking. She was demanding a vow that neither of them would die, that they'd come through whatever awaited them. She wanted a promise that this park would still be here, the bench still standing, the children still playing. He couldn't guarantee that. He couldn't promise it, she knew he couldn't. In the next second, her face reflected it. She looked down, turned her head away, and Harry wished he could promise her, wished he could say they could plan a year ahead… but they couldn't. Not now, not with Voldemort back.

"If I'm still breathing, I'll be with you," he finally said. It was the best he could offer, and by no means reassuring, but he couldn't lie and say a year wouldn't make much difference. It might be the difference between life and death.

Hermione looked back at him, visage aged beyond her years with understanding. "Thank you, Harry… I know that's all I can ask. I just… hoped."

"Maybe someday we can. You know, make those kinds of promises. For now, I don't want to make you a promise I don't know that I can keep."

"You're right. And if I'm breathing…" she trailed, not with uncertainty but staggered with the weight of its meaning.

Harry felt it rush into him and settle in strange, safe-guarded places. He nodded.

For a long time they sat quietly and watched the oblivious children frolic in the open grass, swing from the monkey bars, slip down the slide, tumble and tussle and laugh like there was no room for evil in the world. The two teenagers under the maple tree kept their peace, gave no hint of the fallacy all the others held.

"We should come here more," Harry said out of the blue.

Hermione smiled. "I'm glad you like it."

"We should probably bring drinks next time, though."

"Oh, if you're thirsty there's a water fountain over there," Hermione pointed to the right.

"All right, be right back," Harry got up and Kimmy jumped to her feet like a soldier ordered to attention.

Hermione watched him leave, Kimmy on his heels, and once he was out of sight let her mind wander. Though she didn't want to, she let it linger on the end of term. She ruminated on the kind of present and future they would face when they returned to Hogwarts in the fall. She couldn't help but imagine the kind of danger Harry might have to face, and she was bound and determined to somehow help him.

"Oooo, lookie here, Grace."

Hermione had been so lost in thought that the unexpected voice surprised her. When the familiarity struck her she tensed. She knew the source only too well.

Two girls close to her own age had approached Hermione and stood before her like the boar statues flanking the entrance of Hogwarts. Their unflinching manner was the only similarity between the girls and any physical ugliness. Grace Walters and Belinda Hernandez. Hermione had attended grade school with them, before she went off to Hogwarts, and even then Grace and Belinda had been the prettiest girls in school. The girls' parents had held both girls back a year, so they were a year older than all the other girls in their class, and that additional year of physical maturity had always been apparent. Time had only been kinder as they grew. When Hermione looked up she felt a simultaneous stab of jealousy and spike of fear to see that her two former tormentors were even more beautiful than before.

Grace was a slim, delicate girl with golden blonde hair, an almost china-fine bone structure, pale blue eyes, porcelain skin, and a way of moving and carrying herself that had always made boys into idiots. And she knew it. She had a ballerina's poise, even as she stood in the middle of a park, arms folded, and sneered down at Hermione.

Beside her, Belinda was Grace's equal in looks for entirely different reasons. Where Grace was built like a runner, Belinda looked like a pageant queen. She had developed early and from looks of it she'd never stopped. She was curved like a woman, seeming to have skipped the awkward phase of adolescence. Her skin was flawless olive, black, shiny hair falling in waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her heart-shaped face, full mouth, and chocolate-brown eyes completed the set that was Grace and Belinda. The joke had always been that between the two of them was everything a boy could ever want.

They had been a source of anguish for Hermione for nearly as long as she could remember.

"Hi, Granger Mouse," Belinda said in a sultry, cold tone.

Hermione wanted nothing more than to be elsewhere. "Belinda, Grace."

Belinda glanced at her fair accomplice and snickered, "This doesn't seem quite right, now does it?"

Grace looked down her perfect nose at Hermione. "You're right… something's off. Oh! I know! What, no book, Mouse?"

Hermione's hands closed around the bench as though to flex her fingers would make a book appear. Something to hide behind.

"I thought you'd have to detach your arm to put down your books," Belinda smiled too-sweetly.

"Though you'd think," Grace piped in, "that if she were going to free her hands she'd bother to find a brush."

"It's dreadful, isn't it? I mean, just no effort. Not that any amount of effort in the world would do a bit of good, but at least an _effort_!"

"Would you like us to talk to your parents, Mouse? I'm sure Belinda and I could convince them to pay for some finishing school, because whatever they're teaching you at this private school of yours…"

"… it is a bit… well, embarrassing, you know. But we'd put in a word for you, because it's not fair. We know that you don't know any better."

"Not your fault you're unkempt."

"Leave her alone."

All three girls turned abruptly at the voice. Hermione's eyes widened. Harry was standing on the far side of the maple tree, having just returned from getting a drink. He was glaring darkly at Grace and Belinda. Hermione was taken aback by the low, threatening tone of his voice. Belinda and Grace were taken aback by his manner… they'd never been addressed by a boy with anything less than fawning attention.

Harry tore his eyes from the two girls to glance down at Hermione, and for the brief second he was looking at her his eyes were kind rather than dangerous.

Harry slowly, deliberately returned his eyes to the two girls.

Belinda recovered first, quickly finding her comfort zone, boy-manipulation. "Well! What's this? Does Granger have a boyfriend?" Her gestures were flirtatious, her eyes solicitous, her voice honey-smooth. Grace cast Hermione a condescending, scoffing look.

Hermione squirmed for Harry's sake.

"What of it?" Harry growled.

Hermione's mouth hung open. For a second, so did Belinda's and Grace's.

"Oh! No, it's wonderful, really," Belinda batted her dark lashes at Harry and ran an errant hand over her gorgeous hair. Hermione was sick to her stomach. She'd seen more boys fall to these ploys than she could count. Belinda and Grace could get away with anything when it came to the male gender. Boys lost their minds for those two, and Harry was, after all, just a boy. A teenage boy faced with two ungodly beautiful girls. It was nauseating to have to watch him fall to their wiles, too.

"I'm Belinda, by the way. This is Grace."

Harry would go for Belinda, she was his type. More Cho Chang than Grace. Grace had a Fleur Delacour look to her, and veela wasn't really Harry's style. Ron would have been a goner for Grace, but Harry'd pick Belinda.

Grace uncrossed her arms and smoothed her hands down her shirt… as if in an absent gesture but the deliberateness of it gave away Grace's effort to draw Harry's eyes to her body. "We were just surprised; I'm sure you understand. Mou-oh, I do mean Hermione here… well, never one much for the boys, that one."

"She's just such a bookworm, you know, always with her nose in some smelly old book, and it'd be hard to notice boys with her bushy head stuck in a book," Belinda laughed lightly at her own joke.

Hermione didn't want to endure the humiliation of watching Harry lose his mind, like all the boys did, and take their side because he wasn't thinking. Take their side against her. She had to expect it, she was nothing compared to the two girls currently slandering Hermione left and right, and all her life, constantly before Hogwarts and every holiday since, she'd seen it happen. She'd seen Grace and Belinda chew through guys like candy. Always before it had been watching other boys, boys who never talked to her anyway, trip over themselves. It was so mortifying, dehumanizing, for it to suddenly be Harry.

Harry took a step forward, out of the shadows of the tree trunk. Hermione sagged in her seat.

Grace grinned slyly and added, "I don't know, though… glasses, that _hair_… well, maybe you're the perfect guy for her."

Hermione knew this dance. Grace had recognized, with her almost precognitive ability involving boys, that Harry would favor Belinda. She was clearing the way for Belinda to make the kill. It was a game with these two, test the waters, find the guy's pleasure, play to it.

"Oh! stop that, Grace. Honestly, she's terrible, pay her no mind. Personally, I'm wondering how Herm here snagged you."

Hermione braced for what was to come.

"She wasn't a tart."

Hermione looked up at Harry. Belinda and Grace looked just as stunned. They could not have looked more aghast if Harry had walked up and slapped them. He was staring angrily at both girls, and it seemed only then that Belinda and Grace realized their prey hadn't just been hard to get, he'd been hostile. Toward them. It was possibly their first encounter with such a reaction, their first taste of rejection.

In the next second, it turned both beauties ugly.

Belinda's face hardened and darkened. "I don't get your meaning."

"I'm sure you don't. I always liked smart girls," Harry retorted.

Belinda and Grace looked murderous.

Hermione stood, desperate to end this. "Harry…"

"Yes, _Harry_," Belinda said in a feral voice. "Tell us what else about _Hermione Granger_ gets you hot. How exactly does a knock-kneed, bushy-haired, buck-toothed little bookworm turn you on? _Scandalous_, the things she must do…"

Hermione would have gasped with indignation, at the insinuation, but Harry stopped her cold. He stopped her without saying a single word. It was nothing Belinda or Grace noticed, they were aware of nothing beyond the blue fire in his eyes, because the building surge of energy was magical. Hermione felt it press against her skin like the front of an electrical storm; it was like a physical force trying to push her back, making her hair stand on end and her heart begin to race. It crackled and swelled and Hermione knew only that something was about to happen, something uncontrolled and undeniably powerful. It was billowing out of Harry like waves fit to burst through their concrete dam walls.

Before the bubble of energy popped, to unleash god knew what, Kimmy lunged at Belinda, sank her teeth into the girl's ankle, and Belinda gave a piercing scream.

Harry blinked and the moment of impending _something_ ebbed away.

"_OH_! Wretched bloody beast, _get off of me_, you filthy little…" Belinda kicked at Kimmy, who released her hold on the girl and jumped back to start barking incessantly at the top of her tiny lungs. When the moment broke Hermione had rushed to Harry's side without realizing she'd moved from the bench. How she thought she could forestall that force that had threatened to erupt, how she thought she could control Harry in any way, she didn't know, but she was impelled to try.

Grace helped Belinda hobble away, both cursing like nasty sailors. Once they were gone Kimmy stopped barking and turned sharply to look at Harry, little feet braced apart and green eyes piercing. There was a definite 'come with me' presence to the small dog's stance.

Hermione breathed in deeply and swallowed. Her heart was still hammering; she looked at Harry and saw him staring down at the grass, body tense, and an intent expression on his face.

Hermione moved her hand to touch him, hesitated, then let her fingers brush his forearm. Her skin prickled like she'd touched a static charge. Harry glanced at her and Hermione gave a wordless head jerk in the direction that would lead back to the Granger house.

Harry looked down at Kimmy, back at Hermione, then sighed and visibly forced himself to relax. Kimmy started off and Harry and Hermione followed.

Kimmy forced them to keep a brisk pace on the walk home, and it helped to keep any thoughts of conversation to a minimum.

When they reached the Granger residence Kimmy waited impatiently at the front door for Hermione to let them in. Jake and Miranda were in the living room, on the couch and watching the telly, when the trio trooped into the house. They looked up in surprise when Kimmy made a beeline for the middle of the living room floor, whirled to face Harry and Hermione, and in an instance went from dog to house elf.

"Oh! That could have been bad! Very, very bad!" Kimmy cried.

Miranda frowned and looked between the three. "What? What could have been bad? What happened?"

Kimmy was pacing the floor, muttering to herself "very, very bad" while Miranda and Jake looked to the teenagers for answers. That neither teenager looked as though they'd been hurt it was turning the whole scene very confusing.

It was Harry who volunteered, "I almost lost control of it."

Jake looked sideways at the restless elf. "Of Kimmy?"

"Of my magic."

Dead silence fell over Hermione's parents as they stared first at Harry, then questioningly at Hermione.

Miranda took the remote, turned off the television, and looked gravely at the kids. "What happened?"

"I'm sorry," Harry said, head down and arms crossed in front of his chest defensively. "I was mad. Sometimes when I'm really angry my magic gets away from me."

"It was my fault," Hermione blurted.

"No, it wasn't," Harry said sharply.

"It was!" Hermione looked at her parents. "Harry and I were at the park and Grace Walters and Belinda Hernandez started making fun of me. Harry got in the middle of it."

"That could have been very bad!" Kimmy yelped again.

"Grace Walters and Belinda Hernandez?" Miranda repeated, "those are the girls—"

"Yes," Hermione answered quickly.

Miranda looked then to Harry, something between caution and appreciation in her gaze.

"You could have set a tree on fire!" Kimmy yelled.

"But nothing… um… unusual did happen, right?" Jake asked.

Hermione shook her head. "Kimmy intervened before… before anything happened."

"Could have turned the merry-go-roundy into scrap metal!"

"Whoa," Jake threw a look at Kimmy. "Is that sort of thing likely to happen?"

"Has anything like this happened before?" Miranda asked carefully.

"Just… just once… I kind of wrecked my aunt and uncle's kitchen, then I blew up my Aunt Marge."

"_Blew her up_?!"

"Not like 'exploded'," Hermione threw in, "more like… expanded."

"Could have hurt a little one!"

"Isn't that why you came here with Harry?" Miranda asked the frantic house elf with a note of concern but also confusion.

Kimmy stopped, blinked globe-shaped eyes at Miranda, then turned to face Harry with a renewed calm. "Missus Granger is right, Kimmy's here to guard against this." She sat down on the floor and for the first time looked naked without a pair of boxer shorts on. "I'ms sorry, Mister Harry Potter. This is Kimmy's job. Kimmy knew of Harry Potter's fame, but didn't expect his power. Master Albus should have told me. Kimmy knows now, I'll be watchful for it now."

"I didn't mean to nearly lose it," Harry confessed weakly.

"Just so long as no one was hurt," Miranda said.

Harry began to pull away from the gathering. "Um, excuse me, I'll just be in my room."

"Harry…" Hermione called, like a plea but she had nothing to follow the mere utterance of his name.

"Harry," Miranda said gently, "we're not going to punish you, you don't have to shut up in your bedroom."

"I know, I just… I guess I'd like to be alone for a while."

Hermione frowned but didn't push. When no one else raised a protest Harry escaped into the hall. Shortly afterward they could hear his bedroom door open and shut. Thick, penetrating silence fell over the Grangers and worried, repentant Kimmy. No one seemed to know what to say.

For the first time all day, Hermione couldn't care less about finishing her History of Magic essay.


	14. Chapter 14

Harry was lying on the bed in the guest room, flat on his back with hands behind his head. Hedwig was on the mattress beside him, her coal-black form almost watching over him as he stared at the ceiling. It seemed he'd been studying the patterns in the popcorn ceiling for hours. The house was quiet after his and Hermione's return from the park. He didn't want to think about what the Grangers were doing outside his earshot. He wasn't particularly interested in hearing them have a family discussion about their houseguest being an accident waiting to happen… and an accident of dangerous proportions. He was growing comfortable here; he wasn't keen to hear them talk about how unstable he was. Because everyone always did, it seemed his lot.

Hedwig nipped gently at his shirt, one of several attempts to draw him out of his mood. Harry glanced at his bird and Hedwig clicked her beak at him.

The clicking was quickly followed by a gentle knock on the door.

Harry looked over just as the door cracked open and Hermione stuck her head in. "Harry? Are you still… can I come in?"

"Yeah."

Hermione slipped into the room quietly, a heavy black book (the one she'd been reading after Harry's clothes shopping excursion) clutched to her chest like a child might cling to a teddy bear. She closed the door and turned back to Harry. "If you'd rather be alone I can leave…"

"No… come here," he scooted over on the bed to make room for her. Hedwig gave a short, rather miffed hoot when Harry bumped into her and she flew back to her cage.

Hermione sat down on the bed next to Harry, book still held to her body as her fingers played nervously with the spine and corners. She wasn't looking him in the eye, which gave Harry time to really study her expression. She looked so small, almost frail, and it was so different from the Hermione he was used to seeing.

"I'm so sorry about today," she said uneasily. "You oughtn't to have gotten in the middle of all that."

"They were making fun of you, Hermione, what was I supposed to do? Let them?"

Hermione looked up, almost in a flinch, and met his eyes. She looked like a cornered wild animal. The answer she expected was plain on her face… she'd never thought anyone was going to rescue her. That he had, that he'd stepped in, was incomprehensible in her world. For a moment, he was hurt. How could she think he'd leave her to any kind of torment, be it at the hands of a Death Eater or a pair of vapid girls? Hadn't he _always_ come to rescue her on the rare occasion she needed it?

"Oh," Hermione mumbled and ducked her head.

Harry brought his arms down, rose up, and supported his upper body on one elbow, bringing him closer to her. "What was that all about, Hermione?"

Hermione looked warily at him.

"I've never seen you like that before. Draco's been a hundred times nastier to you than that, and you always tell him off, or hit him." Harry smiled and Hermione gave a faint smirk. Then she sighed and her brow furrowed. "I don't know, really. Never thought about it. Those two girls have been that way to me for as long as I can remember. I guess I just got used to letting them. It's stupid, I know, but…" Hermione bit her bottom lip and turned her eyes to Harry's. "Why did you tell them you were my boyfriend?"

Harry felt himself blush and he sat up fully, bringing him nearly eye-level with Hermione (the inch taller he was than she was negligible). She watched him closely as he tried to answer. "Oh… I… well, I don't know. It just seemed like the best way to make them back off of you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it; if you're angry…"

"No, of course not. I mean… thank you." Hermione gave him a shy smile and Harry's stomach fluttered. His earlier embarrassment tried to make a break for the pride camp.

"You bet." Harry, for the first time, paid attention to the book she was carrying. "What's that?"

Hermione hugged the book closer. "Oh… just a little extra reading." She looked torn for a moment, debating something, then she glanced over her shoulder toward the bedroom door. Harry, curiosity piqued, leaned forward. Hermione turned back to look at him, considered him thoughtfully, then she laid the book down in her lap and reciprocally leaned in toward Harry. For a pubescent, fleeting moment, Harry thought she was going to kiss him.

"Actually," she whispered, "I wanted to speak with you about something."

"What?" he asked, surprised by how gruff and breathy his voice was when it came out. Hermione's eyes flickered, apparently she noticed, and he cleared his throat.

"This is a book on advanced spells, charms, and potions. I've been going through it in my spare time trying to find anything that might help you."

Harry, back to the world-of-fighting-Voldemort serious, looked down at the book meaningfully then back up at Hermione.

"Of course, most of the stuff in here we couldn't do over the summer, not without getting busted for underage magic outside of Hogwarts. There are some things we might start working on once we're back in school, but I was trying to find anything we might be able to do during the summer without getting in trouble."

Harry was very interested now. "I take it you found something."

Hermione nodded. "Now, mind you, it would be difficult, in fact it's notoriously hard to do, maybe too hard for us to manage, and you might think it's a stupid idea anyway, but… what do you think about trying to become an animagus?"

Harry sat back, stunned. Hermione continued to watch him closely. She was, of course, serious.

What did he think about trying to become an animagus? He never had thought of it before. He knew that it was supposed to be a very hard feat to manage, so difficult that few had mastered the skill. It was most definitely advanced spell-work. Take on an animal form? He'd be lying if he said it didn't have a certain allure. His father and godfather had both been unregistered animagi. He'd always felt a certain pride in his father's ability to become a stag, because it made his dad just that powerful and skilled a wizard. But he'd never thought of trying to do it himself. Could he even do it? What if he was something sissy like a butterfly?

Hermione was still waiting for his reply.

Harry leaned back in to whisper, "You think being an animagus would somehow help?"

"Well, I've been giving it a lot of thought. Kimmy's dog disguise got me thinking about it, actually. She's been out in a muggle neighborhood, at a muggle train station, and no one was the wiser she was a magical creature. Handy way of disappearing in plain sight, and frankly, in the magic world it's pretty hard for you to blend in, what with how famous you are. I imagine a spot of anonymity would be very useful."

"So you're suggesting I try it and, _if_ I manage, don't register with the ministry?"

"Absolutely not. Dumbledore himself said we can't trust everyone in the ministry now that You Know Who's back, and besides, what kind of disguise would an animal form be if a Death Eater could infiltrate the Animagus Registry records and find out what kind of animal you were?"

"Good point."

"And something else. Sirius. He's the only person who's ever escaped from Azkaban, and he was only able to slip the Dementors because he had a canine form; it confused them, they couldn't home in on him like they would a person. I know you're brilliant with the patronus charm, Harry, but what if one day you're faced with too many Dementors to fight them all off? Retreat would be a _really_ great option.

"And whatever animal form you took, it would be sure to have some ability superior to humans'. Breathe underwater or run faster or jump higher, maybe even fly, who knows, but anything to give us an edge, an advantage in any shape or form."

"Wait, are you… you want to become an animagus, too?"

"Well, of course. If it could potentially help you, and I want to help you, stands to reason it could help me help you, doesn't it?"

"Umm… yeah, when you put it like that." Harry stopped to give it serious thought. From what he knew of animagi, once a person achieved an animal form, there wasn't any way to reverse the newfound skill. Of course, one could always choose not to become their animal form, but it would always be there, awaiting release, ready to be tapped. It was like a cage of Cornish pixies, once opened it was nearly impossible to put them all back in. What if he was a fluffy bunny or a goat and had to live with that animal inside him the rest of his life? And what about Hermione? She was doing this for his sake, to help him… was it fair to ask her to permanently change herself for him? What if she was a shrew or a bandicoot? Would she blame him for having that kind of essence stuck in her forever?

"Are you sure _you_ want to do it?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. "I've thought about it a lot, and the potential advantages outweigh the cons, in my opinion."

Then again, there was always the chance he'd end up a stag, like his father. He had a stag patronus, after all, maybe the two forms were indicative of each other. He'd really like to share that in common with his dad. And maybe Hermione would be an eagle or falcon; it would certainly give her the convenience of flying when she was so reluctant to mount a broom. It might not be bad at all.

"Well, what would we have to do?"

Hermione brightened. "So you want to do it?"

Harry nodded. As usual, everything Hermione had said had been correct. An animal form had been useful to a lot of people close to him; it could be useful to him, too.

Hermione smiled and grabbed up the book in her lap… but instead of opening it eagerly she clutched it to her chest and looked back over her shoulder toward the door. "Tonight, when my parents are asleep and Kimmy's in the closet, we'll go over the process then." She got up from the bed, "I told Mum I was coming in here to talk you into having a swim. She thinks it would cheer you up, so put your trunks on and I'll meet you by the pool. Tonight," she patted the book then hurried out of the room.

* * *

Hermione had been in a rush when she left Harry's bedroom. She flew into her own, stashed the advanced magic book, fished the shopping bag from her mom out of the dresser… then she ground to a screeching halt. Her mother had bought her a two-piece. A bikini. A cute little peach/pink top and bottom. Hermione's jaw dropped. _What_ had her mother been thinking? Hermione had never owned a bikini in her life; she'd had one-pieces since she was old enough to swim. She wasn't made for revealing swimwear, she had a boyish frame, she was built for concealing fabric. She'd look absolutely silly in a bikini.

She pulled out her old suits from last year and tried one on, then another… her mother had been right. She'd outgrown them. She didn't think she'd grown so much, but she couldn't lift her arms in her old suits. So she was back to the bikini. She'd already told her mom she loved it, she'd professed it sight unseen. She'd never imagined her mother would buy her something like this.

Hermione hesitantly undressed and put on the suit. She turned to her mirror with dread. It was as she suspected. She looked ridiculous. Her skin was too pale, trying to find a tan line would have been a fruitless search, her legs were too long and thin, coltish, her collar bones a little too noticeable, her arms skinny and a bit bony at the elbows, her figure barely distinguishing her as female with only faint curves at her waist, her breasts only just filling the top. She looked silly. This was the kind of get-up Grace Walters or Belinda Hernandez could wear and look stunning, the Patil twins could look good in this, Cho Chang would make Harry a drooling buffoon, but _Hermione Granger_… she looked liked a little sister playing dress-up. She'd _never_ have the body to wear this.

She was suddenly mortified at the idea of Harry seeing her like this. She searched frantically for a shirt and ended up pulling a baggy T-shirt down over her body. She still felt absurdly naked underneath, but it would have to do.

Hermione fetched a couple of towels from the bathroom then went out to the backyard. Harry was already there by the pool, in his black and red swim shorts, his shirt off and in his hands. He was playing with the shirt fretfully, obviously torn between the choice to swim with it on or keep it off.

Hermione stopped short and took a good look, despite herself. It was more of Harry than she'd ever seen before. He could do with a bit of sun, of course ('pot, meet kettle,' Hermione thought), but the contrast of his torso made his black hair look impossibly dark. He actually had rather nice arms. Very trim overall; she was right that the tournament had kept him in fighting form. The rest was the body years of Quidditch gave him. Not a hulk like Viktor, but not nearly as scrawny as his robes had made it seem. In fact, if some of the girls at Hogwarts could see what Hermione was seeing, they might fancy him for reasons beyond the name and the scar. _Very_ respectable for a boy his age. Maybe even a little hint of the man who seemed fated to one day face the greatest dark wizard of their time.

And then Hermione looked longer and noticed the marks of Harry's misfortunes. Scars. Of course the mark on his forehead, hidden by a fringe of black locks, but the other marks, some she'd never actually seen before, drew her eyes. The knife-wound on his forearm, of course. A four-inch scar on his left shoulder-blade. Hermione remembered the Horntail flinging Harry with its spiked tail during the second task. A scar on his side, just below his ribcage, from when he'd fallen off his broom during Quidditch after the Dementor attacked him third year. He was lucky to have come away with just a scar considering the distance he'd fallen. There were others, smaller, some destined to fade completely in time, and some she couldn't place that would have to be courtesy of the Dursleys. There weren't too terribly many scars, but still too many for a boy his age.

Harry turned to look at her and Hermione shook herself. Then she blushed, remembering the outfit she had on under her shirt… and that Harry had been there when her mother bought it; he knew what she was wearing, too.

Hermione approached Harry and put the towels down on a deck chair. She couldn't quite bring her eyes up to meet his. She recalled the tense, uncomfortable way he'd passed on the suit to her. He had to have been thinking the same thing, that Hermione wasn't fit for something quite so revealing, but she knew he wouldn't say a word bad about it. He was too sweet, but she'd know he was thinking it, anyone in their right mind would.

"Hermione! Harry!"

Both turned back toward the house to see Miranda coming toward them, smiling, carrying a bottle of sunscreen in one hand and a thermos with two overturned, stacked plastic cups on top of it in the other.

"Here you two are, a spot of tea when you get thirsty. And don't forget this," she handed Harry the sunscreen. She paused and glanced at him. "Harry, not to sound like a mother hen, but we're going to need to put a bit more meat on your bones while you're here."

Hermione thought he looked fine already, even if on the thin side. Thin was just Harry.

Miranda turned to her daughter, glanced down at the shirt, and urged, "Well, come on, let's see it."

Hermione froze.

Harry fidgeted nervously.

"Oh, um, right," Hermione swallowed her pride and all sense of modesty and pulled the shirt off over her head. She felt like she may as well be standing there naked for what little she was wearing. And it truly wasn't that skimpy a bikini as bikinis went, Miranda _did_ know her daughter wouldn't go for some string-tied affair, but _still_…

"Oh, good, it fits. You look lovely, dear. You two have fun, and don't forget sunscreen, if you do I'll have no sympathy if you burn." Miranda patted Hermione's shoulder and headed back toward the house.

Hermione glanced self-consciously at Harry to see him looking pointedly in any direction but hers. He was tense, probably afraid to hurt her feelings if forced to comment on her swimsuit.

Hermione sighed in defeat, decided to spare him, and tossed her shirt on top of the towels. "You're right, it's dreadful, but I can't very well tell my mum that I look like the stupidest git in England. She meant well." Hermione shrugged. "Guess it's just a good thing Ron's not here; I'd never hear the end of it if he saw me trussed up like this."

Harry cautiously looked over at her, seemed to lock his eyes on her face, then broke and tentatively glanced down at her. Hermione's insides tightened, almost as though she could _feel_ his eyes sweep her from neck to toes and back again. He met her eyes and there was a strange intensity in them. "You don't look stupid."

Hermione swallowed and cleared her throat. "Well, thank you, that's nice of you to say." She didn't know what to do with her hands until she spotted the sunscreen clutched rather tightly in Harry's hand. "Here," Hermione held out her hand, "I'll do your back."

Harry looked frantically at her a moment, as though she'd asked him to switch suits with her, then he gave her the bottle. Like a stilted robot, he turned his back to her and froze. Hermione smoothed the cold lotion over Harry's exposed back. He was surprisingly solid (when he didn't allow himself to move the sheer sensation of mass was startling), very warm, even in the midday sun, and unexpectedly soft, too. She wouldn't think a boy would have such soft skin. Even where her fingers ran over the raised ridges of scars it was still soft on either side of the healed wound; maybe it made him scar more easily. Harry was rigid, like he'd been on the receiving end of _petrificus totalus_. He was clearly uncomfortable. Hermione hurried to finish his back and arms, then put a handful on her palm and started doing her front as she held the bottle out to him. Harry took the bottle, kept his back turned, dropped his shirt to the ground, and did his front.

When Hermione had finished her front she turned around and said, "Could you do my back?"

Harry didn't answer, for a moment there was no response at all, then she felt the cold touch of lotion then the span of his hand on her back. Hermione almost gasped… she should have expected it, she'd asked him to do it, but still it kind of caught her breath. She started to understand why Harry had been standing so tensely. She felt like her own muscles were taut, battling with the flipping in her stomach for dominance in making a mess of her senses. Harry's hands were nice, soft, thorough. She pulled her hair aside to make sure he could properly do her shoulders. Harry obliged, smoothing sunscreen on her shoulders and down the backs of her arms, and Hermione dropped her head and closed her eyes. Stupidly, she was worried she'd shake.

Harry's hands disappeared and Hermione opened her eyes. She saw Harry's glasses fall to the pile of towels at her left side, and she'd no sooner glanced at them when she heard a splash to her right. She turned, startled, to see Harry come up for air and tread water.

Hermione smiled and rushed after him, jumping in with a splash and a laugh.


	15. Chapter 15

It felt strange to be sneaking around the house after dark like a criminal. She had their cover story all planned out; on her shoulder she carried her school bag with her astronomy book and her and Harry's completed astronomy homework inside. If they were caught in the back yard at night they'd simply say they were doing some checks on their astronomy homework before calling it fit to be turned in. There would be nothing odd about that. And if they were out there for school, with textbooks and parchments scattered about, neither her mother nor father would question the large black spell book among the items, either. It was rather clever, if Hermione did say so herself. Still, it felt weird to be going behind her parents' backs and lying outright. But she'd have to get used to it, used to bald-faced lies to protect her parents. They couldn't understand the likes of Voldemort, couldn't fight him, and more importantly couldn't do anything to protect her from the dark wizard. It was better not to let them worry about things they couldn't change.

Hermione slipped out the back door of the kitchen and instantly spotted Harry. He was already in the yard, sitting beside the garden with a small candle flickering on the grass in front of him. A flash of amber in the shadows, flickers of brown-gold in time with the flare of the flame, was Hedwig on his shoulder, out for her midnight prowl but obviously curious enough about her master's nocturnal venture to stick around and see what was going on. Harry reached up and pet his bird at odd intervals. He looked in Hermione's direction as she made her way across the yard to him. When she was on the other side of the candle from him she dropped her bag and sat down on the grass.

"Almost like being back at Hogwarts, isn't it?" he commented, and Hermione chuckled. "Yeah, a bit, only thing we're missing is your invisibility cloak." She dug around in her bag and began to lie out their props. Astronomy textbook, opened strategically to a labeled starscape, their homework parchments, two ink quills, scrap paper. It looked haphazardly perfect for their alibi. Then Hermione drew out the black book and opened it on her lap. Harry leaned forward and Hedwig, detecting the shift, locked her eyes attentively on the book as she might a mouse.

Hermione tracked the dancing words in the firelight and read aloud, "The first step to becoming an animagus, and by far the longest and most difficult in the multi-step process, is the retraining of the brain to connect with the natural world. This preliminary step is where most witches and wizards attempting the transformation fail. To truly harmonize oneself with their animal form, a witch or wizard must willfully and consciously abandon part of themselves to their animal instincts. Only when tokens of this union with the world transcending human experience are fully connected to the witch or wizard seeking form beyond human can one transition from the human shape of witch or wizard to the adopted form of beast. Here too lie complications, for even if one has the mental discipline to adjust their thinking, many witches and wizards are inherently incapable of accepting that they have an animal counterpart woven into their magical psychological profile. If one cannot surrender to the idea of possessing animal qualities they will never succeed in physically transforming into that animal shape." Hermione looked up and across to Harry, his eyes and Hedwig's glinting in the tiny candle's light.

"Okay… so how to do we do it?" Harry asked.

Hermione sighed in exasperation. "We have to figure it out ourselves from these clues, obviously. They're not about to give a step-by-step how-to for becoming an animagus."

Harry frowned. Hedwig, apparently losing interest in the conversation, spread her jet black wings and took off into the night in search of prey.

Harry rubbed his shoulder where his familiar had pushed off and said, "So… you don't know how to do it?"

Hermione glared faintly at him. "Harry, we can figure this out. Now, I've been thinking about what they meant by 'retraining the brain', and I think it could mean meditation."

"Meditation? Like, Buddhist monks?"

Hermione smiled. "Something like that, yes. In the muggle world there are alternative medicine theories as well as religious subgroups that suggest meditation to do very much the same thing, get in touch with nature, transcend human consciousness. I think that kind of approach is what this book suggests is necessary for the first step."

"What about tokens? What does that mean?"

Hermione looked down at the book and played with the edge of the page. "Maybe we're supposed to gather bits of the natural world. Perhaps we're meant to collect as many pieces of nature as we can, you know, as many kinds of grass, or types or leaves, or bits of animal hair from as many species we can, feathers… I don't know, but those would be 'tokens', don't you think?"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck and glanced up at the stars. "Maybe we should write and ask Sirius how he did it."

Hermione didn't answer right away. "Do you think he'd tell us? Help us, I mean?"

"I think he would. He'd want to help, I'm sure of it."

"Well, we could… but Harry, is it wise to owl him with our intentions? What if our letter was intercepted, what if someone found out what we were doing? This is _illegal_, as we have no intention of registering our animagi forms if we succeed. And if the wrong people found out what we were doing, well, we might as well not do it at all. We're relying on the secret advantages this kind of ability would give us."

"But he's someone who's done it, and no offense, Hermione, but that book's pretty vague on how to go about it."

"We're just as bright as they were; we can figure it out, too."

"I don't doubt that you're smart, Hermione, I know you're brilliant, I just think a little help would go a long way."

"You require help?"

Both Harry and Hermione jumped when the third voice joined theirs from the darkness. Hermione reflexively slammed the book in her lap shut and Harry reached to his waistband for his wand. They sought in the darkness for the intruder and swirling mist arose from nothing and quickly coalesced into the shape of Kimmy, clad in stealthy black boxers that covered her from knees to shoulders.

"Kimmy!" Hermione yelped then fought to calm her voice. "You… startled us."

Kimmy looked deliberately from Hermione to Harry then said, "You need help?"

Harry glanced quickly at Hermione, at the book in her lap, then at their scattered astronomy things.

"Oh, um… yes, we were just doing our astronomy homework. We were thinking we might owl Ron and… ask him about… the moons of Jupiter. Quite the Jupiter-buff, Ron is."

Kimmy stared implacably at Hermione, so long that Hermione started to shift under the house elf's gaze.

Finally Kimmy moved closer to the candle and sat down. "You really shouldn't lie to Kimmy, Miss Hermione."

Hermione shot a panicked look at Harry, then looked back at Kimmy. Kimmy looked up at the girl, nonplussed, as damnably patient and expectant as Dumbledore often was when faced with a twitchy student.

"You think we ought to ask her?" Harry finally asked, breaking the tense silence.

Kimmy looked to Harry and silent approval, like a praise of 'right answer, my boy', was in her glittering green eyes.

Hermione whimpered and sent her own look Harry's way… a look of 'are you completely spare?', but when she looked down at the elf again she couldn't think of a way to avoid it now. Kimmy knew they weren't doing astronomy, and if they begged off telling her what they were up to there was no guarantee she wouldn't report to Dumbledore. They were stuck, they had to tell Kimmy.

Hermione, her better judgment screaming resistance all the way, slowly reopened the book to the correct chapter and eyed the elf a long moment. Dumbledore trusted Kimmy with Harry's safety; Hermione tried to decide how far they could go in relying on that explicit trust from the headmaster.

"Kimmy… you know about the return of You Know Who."

Kimmy shivered and tugged her boxer shorts higher up her body as though to ward off a chill. She nodded, causing the tips of her ears to wiggle. "Oh, yes. Bad, bad times."

"Very bad. And Headmaster Dumbledore told you You Know Who has it out for Harry."

Kimmy looked toward Harry with sorrow and affection. "Yes, yes… Kimmy was told." Harry gave a lopsided, sorry smile in recognition of Kimmy's concern for him.

Hermione paused to consider her words. "Well, you see, now that You Know Who's alive again, I wanted to think of everything I could that might help Harry. And I think… I think if Harry and I were animagi, well, that could be very useful to us. Might even save his life. I checked this book out from Hogwarts library before I left the castle, there's an extensive chapter on the animagus…" Hermione tried to gauge the elf's reaction. "And we're trying to figure out how one goes about becoming an animagus. That's what Harry meant we ought to ask you. Do you know how to do it, Kimmy?"

Kimmy regarded Hermione very closely, not saying a word. Hermione winced and glanced fleetingly at Harry.

"Hermione thinks," Harry added, "that to 'retrain one's thinking' refers to meditation of some kind, trying to get in touch with nature. And she thinks 'tokens' means we're to collect things, like leaves and feathers."

Hermione had never felt under scrutiny by a house elf until now. Kimmy was overbearing in her gaze, much the way Professor McGonagall could browbeat anxious students without uttering a single word.

Then, after an unbearable silence, Kimmy said, "Miss Hermione is indeed a very bright witch."

Harry and Hermione exchanged hopeful, disbelieving looks.

"You… you know how to become an animagus?" Hermione asked.

"Yes."

"Would you teach us?" Harry asked.

Kimmy paused, looked uncertain. She tugged at the bottoms of her boxers and shook her head. "It's not allowed."

"We know," Hermione confessed, "but if it could help save Harry's life… isn't that why you were sent home with us, to make sure Harry's safe? Maybe being an animagus won't save his life someday, but maybe it _will_. We have to try everything, don't we?"

Kimmy worried the hem of her boxers, clearly torn about what she should do. Hermione held her breath. If Kimmy refused she'd probably relay their intentions to Dumbledore.

Eventually, Kimmy lifted her head and looked directly into Hermione's eyes. "You have to tap into the magical imprint inside everything in nature. That's what you have to retrain your brain to do, reach the magic in this blade of grass," Kimmy picked a blade from beside her and held it up, "and know its magic, connect with it, and then it's your token." Kimmy dropped the blade of grass and watched it flutter away in the breeze.

Hermione held back a gasp. "You mean… that's what we're meant to do?"

Kimmy nodded. "But listens, Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter, where most fail is to think like a human too much. So you retrain your brain, you learn to find the magic in everything, but not everything's magic can be your token. So this leaf has magic, so? Every leaf has magic, part of the living essence of the tree, you see, but not everything with magic is for you. So maybe this leaf doesn't give token to you, but maybe that one will. You can't take a token that's not yours, you can't ignore one that picks you. Collect what's yours for the final incantation, but only yours. If it's not your token it will sour the spell. Because it doesn't belong, see? Many witches and wizards try to force their tokens, and that's not natural, is it? A wizard thinks this rock should be a token, because rocks are nature, so he takes it, but it didn't token itself to him, so he thought like a human and the animal in him doesn't like that. It won't join with him for lies. Your animal won't join with you if you try to trick it."

"Honesty, fidelity," Hermione mused.

Kimmy beamed. "Yes! Just that, Miss Hermione! Honesty. Yes. Fidelity. Yes, yes. That's what you must do."

"And how do we meditate to reach this magic in leaves and grass?" Harry asked.

Kimmy blinked at him. "One cannot teach the how, but Kimmy can tell the what. Stop thinking like a human. Be part of the leaves and part of the grass, be the magic in you that connects to the magic in the leaves and the grass. That's what you must do. How is what you must do."

It was a baffling riddle to Harry, but Hermione was relieved. "Thank you so much, Kimmy. We'll work really hard, but we won't think really hard."

Kimmy clapped. "I do think Miss Hermione gets it!"

"Well, I'm glad someone does," Harry mumbled.

"Oh, you'll do it, Harry. It's about gut instinct, if I understand Kimmy correctly, and you're very good at going on instinct."

Kimmy was bouncing up and down on her bum in excitement over Hermione's grasp of the concept.

"Think of it this way, Harry… when you're catching the snitch, how much are you actually _thinking_?"

Harry blinked and the first whisper of understanding shot through him. "Hardly at all."

"That's it, Mister Harry Potter! Stop that thinking! That's the key to it."

"I don't know how we can thank you, Kimmy."

"It's to protect Mister Harry Potter, yes?"

"Absolutely."

"Then it's what Kimmy should do. But Kimmy wouldn't object to a nice new pair of boxer shorts."

Hermione laughed. "You'll get them, Kimmy, I'll get you a real nice pair of boxers."

Kimmy beamed merrily and jumped up from the ground.

"Kimmy!" Hermione called out and the elf, bringing up her hand to snap back to the house, paused. "You're not… you won't tell anyone what we're trying to do, will you?"

"No, no, no, Miss Hermione. Kimmy won't tell your secret. Nor can I help you any more than I already have, from this it is yours alone to do."

"We understand. Thanks a bunch, Kimmy."

With a snap the house elf disappeared and Harry and Hermione were left alone again. Without the elf's talkative presence the night seemed to rush back inward to close around them. Hermione was on the high of achievement, of figuring out a problem, though Harry still looked dubious.

"I really think we can do this, Harry. Let's start now. Come over here," Hermione closed the spell book and stuffed it in her bag. Then she shoved their astronomy work to one side to make room on the ground.

"Hermione, I don't think…"

"Good, you shouldn't. Not for this." Hermione saw the doubt in Harry's expression, the hesitancy in his movements, and she reined in her bubbling enthusiasm. He didn't share her confidence and throttling him with hers wouldn't help him reach the state of mind they'd both need. "Let's just try, Harry. I really do think we can manage, in fact, I think you might do better at this than me." Harry gave her a strange look and Hermione said bashfully, "Well, you're so much better at going on instinct than I am. You know me, I over-think everything, and for this thinking can ruin it all on the very first step. Maybe we'll get it, maybe we won't, it _is_ very hard to do, but we should at least try, shouldn't we?"

Harry gave up and shrugged. "All right," he said and crawled on his hands and knees around the small candle to sit beside Hermione. "Now what?"

Hermione laid back on the grass and patted the spot beside her. "Lay back."

Harry paused then wordlessly did as told, stretching out beside her. Hermione resisted the urge to look over at his starlit profile, because already she was trying to clear her mind of thought. She tried to grab the emptiness between stars and let it fill her mind.

"Okay… now what."

"Just try to lie there and not think of anything."

"What if I fall asleep?"

Hermione chuckled. "Then you fall asleep. No big deal. If it doesn't work tonight, we'll just try some other time. I don't expect us to 'token' anything our first go out."

"Then why are we—"

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't imagine we should talk. We should concentrate."

"On nothing."

"Yes."

Harry sighed. "Okay, then," he said in a relenting voice, then he fell quiet.

Hermione opened her senses to the yard, the hard ground beneath her, the smell of the grass near her head, the sound of crickets and owls ('probably Hedwig… no, stop, don't think about it'), the cool air on her face, the stars a heavy blanket of eternity stretching to forever above her. Even if it didn't work, it was a profoundly peaceful moment in time. Hermione closed her eyes and breathed in, filling her lungs with the clean night air. She heard Harry breathing next to her. In and out, slow and steady… slower, deeper. ('He's falling asleep… don't think about it.') She couldn't help the way her thoughts were sliding to her right. Harry's body supine beside her, his long limbs lax, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closing, his mouth relaxing, his hair fluttering in the breeze, his hands, his stomach, his hips, his feet. ('You're doing way too much thinking!') Maybe if she were just a bit closer she could catch his scent on the air. Maybe a hand straying over just a bit would touch the boundaries of his body heat.

Hermione knew she wasn't going to token anything tonight. She stopped trying and instead enjoyed lying under the stars, Harry asleep beside her, and her own worries slipping away as she, too, surrendered to sleep.

* * *

Peripheral awareness of the world around him danced at the edges of his senses. He had some sense of the brisk night air on his exposed skin, seeping through his clothes and giving him goosebumps. He could feel the hard ground, he certainly felt that more than the rest. He could feel blades of grass, itchy and rough against the back of his neck and his arms. The essence of darkness, untempered night, thick beyond his eyelids. The pure sense of openness, of unending sky above him, the flavor of freedom he knew from broom-riding, swelled around him. He was cold, chilly everywhere…except in one patch on his left side where there was a blossom of warmth. There was a pocket of warmth, a patch of softness, a section of very comfortable in a wholly uncomfortable situation.

That place at his side was enough to keep him where he lay rather than seek better accommodations. He wouldn't move lest it make that piece of warmth go away. But the rest was beyond ignoring.

Harry startled when something moved to engulf him.

He flinched awake, eyes desperately searching the darkness for danger as he turned to the side, into the warm spot, and brought up his arm to shield Hermione from the swallowing presence.

Until he realized it was a blanket being laid out over them.

"Kimmy?" Harry mumbled at the miniature figure palely outlined by the stars.

"Sorry to wake you, Mister Harry Potter. Kimmy thought you and Miss Hermione might get cold." Kimmy continued to drape the blanket over the pair, undeterred by Harry's surprise.

Harry didn't move from his spot, half-leaning over Hermione, his arm around her. It was as though it refused to register. When it did he looked down quickly, in panic, at Hermione's face. He let out a breath of relief to see that Kimmy's gesture had not woken her.

For a moment, he couldn't help but watch her. She was curled on her side, turned into him, her arm bent and pillowing her head. Her hair was spilling out around her shoulders, fanning across the grass, strands moving faintly in the small breeze. Her expression was one of peaceful repose, almost unearthly lovely in the moonlight. She was so completely, purely Hermione, and so amazingly perfect in that moment for being just that. Harry found he was fighting the impulse to smile, to touch her face, her hair, and he froze when he realized that was what he wanted to do. He felt it jolt through his body, down his spine, and he jerked his arm back as though to leave it where it was a moment longer would invite untold dangers.

Kimmy was putting away the astronomy text and their homework parchments in Hermione's bag.

Hermione shifted beneath the blanket in her sleep, repositioned her head on her arm, and sighed into Harry's chest. Harry's stomach lurched and his heart lodged in his throat. What was he supposed to do now? Just lie back down with her under the blanket Kimmy had brought them? Sleep beside her under the stars in her backyard until dawn? Steal back to the house and leave her alone… no, he wouldn't do that. Might be wiser, but he wouldn't leave her. Then what, wake her and get them both off to bed in their separate rooms? Part of Harry really, _really_ didn't want to do that. The appeal behind just settling back down with her was almost too tempting. Dare he play with that kind of fire? Oh, how some dark, wild part of him (that terrified him just a bit) longed to.

Then he thought of the morning. He tried to imagine waking up with her, her waking up with him. Not a good idea. In fact, a really bad idea. If recent, _annoying_ 'trends' held true to form, and he had a dreadful feeling they would, any circumstance that left Hermione pressed to him when he woke in the morning was guaranteed to be horrifyingly embarrassing. Best call a strategic withdrawal.

"Hermione?" Harry softly called her name and touched her shoulder. He gently shook her. "Hey, Mione."

Hermione took in a breath, the corners of her mouth curved in the ghost of a faint smile, and she languidly stretched out against him. Separate bedrooms was _definitely_ the right call. Harry shifted fractionally away from her and took the risk of moving his hand to her face. He brushed back her hair and said louder, "Come on then, Hermione, wake up."

Hermione groaned protest, low and deep in the back of her throat, and Harry could almost think she was doing it on purpose. She opened her eyes and at first stared ahead, right into his chest, without registering where she was. When she did she started and tracked her eyes up to his face. "Harry?"

Harry gave a smirk. "Errr… yeah."

Hermione frowned, still confused.

"Doesn't look like we're going to get anywhere with the animagus thing tonight, best head back inside, don't you think?"

Hermione processed his words, understanding finally caught up with her, and she rolled over on to her back. Harry tapped down the rush of disappointment when the warm spot went with her. "Oh, yes… I suppose so." She stretched again and Harry quickly got to his feet.

Kimmy had already vanished with Hermione's book bag of things. Hermione looked around for them a few seconds then trusted they were in safe hands since Harry wasn't worried.

"Come on," Harry extended a hand down to Hermione and she took it. He hauled her to her feet and a little awkwardly they went back to the house together.


	16. Chapter 16

Harry yawned and slipped down further in his chair. Hermione glanced across the table at him, looked shrewd a moment, then put her nose back to the grindstone, as it were. They were back in the Granger library, once more trying to tackle the last bit of History of Magic homework. Hermione seemed to be making typically impressive headway, but Harry was bogged down. He was of the opinion that he was too tired to rightly focus on the history of magic. Between their late night outing and broken sleep, Harry could do with a decent nap more than he could the Wizengamot ruling of 1429 addressing the period prank of hexing muggle mules to hop. Apparently quite the disaster for the poor muggles at the time. It had Harry going cross-eyed with boredom.

Hermione looked reproachfully at him now and then, but she seemed to grant him clemency, as it was her idea and her urging that had them up at odd hours, and she didn't nag him about staring off into space instead of working on his essay.

Harry, head propped in his hand, was sagging and starting to doze off when a loud bang jolted him upright in his chair. Hermione squeaked and her quill scratched a black line down the center of her scroll. "Bloody hell!" she cursed as Harry turned at a second, sharper thump.

A flurry of flapping wings at the window had Harry up and out of his chair while Hermione tried to assess the damage to her homework. The whole time Harry was crossing the room she was talking to herself, "Just brilliant, and I can't even do a _scourgify _to right this mess. I'll have to wait until term to spell this out. Could just rewrite the whole thing, I suppose, oh bother..."

Harry reached the window, opened it, and a ball of feathers zoomed into the room. Harry ducked the darting bird even as he recognized the animal. "Pig!"

Hermione looked up, her eyes widened, and she dove under the table just in time to avoid getting a face-full of Ron's owl. Pig flitted and cavorted around the room, hooting happily and, in his mindless enthusiasm, running right into a bookshelf. In his scramble to resume his wild flight, his talons dug into the spines of several books and they were yanked off the shelf to clatter to the floor as he flapped back into the air.

"Pig! Get down here this instant!" Hermione cried and made a leaping grab for the bird. Pig hooted and dodged out of reach.

Harry clamored atop the desk, Hermione gasping and trying to pull their homework parchments to safety, and he flexed his hands in readiness. When Pig made a dash within reach he lunged and snatched, and his seeker skills held true and Pig screeched and wriggled in Harry's hand.

Hermione brushed her hair back from her face with one hand, her other arm full of crumpled parchment, as Harry jumped down from the table. Pig kicked his legs wildly a moment then stilled and hooted on his back, splayed talons held stiffly in the air. When his legs were still, the owl proved to have a note tied to one of them.

"Hey, looks like a letter from Ron," Harry said as he pulled the parchment free. With a sideways look at the little bird in his grasp, Harry carefully opened his fingers to release Pig. Pig laid motionless a moment, then cart-wheeled out of Harry's hand and landed with a graceless thunk on to the table top. Before the neurotic owl could think of taking flight again Hermione shoved their bowl of study snacks, moist tea cakes, at the animal. Pig, apparently hungry from his long flight from Romania, gratefully stayed put to eat ravenously.

Harry unrolled the letter as Hermione rounded the table to stand beside him. "What's Ron say?" She titled her head to read the letter even as Harry did so as well.

_'Hey, guys! Sorry I haven't written you sooner, but it's been so crazy around here. Romania's great, you really should have come, Harry. Some of the blokes here talk on and on about your tangle with the Horntail during the tournament. Even Charlie was impressed, and that's saying something that you impressed dragon-keepers! Told them you're always doing wicked stuff like that! With my help, course. Ha! We've done loads of stuff; this dragon-keeping's harder than it looks! Don't know that I'd ever want to do it for a job or anything, but wow, talk about a story for the summer! No way Dean or Seamus's summer will top mine this year. _

'Hope you two aren't having too terrible a time. Harry, if Hermione's not letting you have any fun and just making you do homework tell her from me to lighten up. Give a chap a break, Hermione!

'Everyone's having a lot of fun. It's been nice to see Charlie again, he's a good laugh. Ginny figures she fancies some Australian Short Snout trainer. Blugh! Girls, eh? Mum and Dad say hi.

'Well, gotta go! A clutch of Chinese Fireballs are hatching. Cheers!

'Ron'

Hermione sat down on the edge of the table and let one roving, disheartened glance fall on their abandoned homework. "Well, sounds like he's having a good time, at least."

"Yeah," Harry rolled up the letter and put it in his pocket. Hermione went to the shelf that Pig had vandalized and picked up the fallen books. As she set them back in their proper place she said, "Since we're stopped anyway I guess we might as well take a break from homework for a bit. Figure we should write Ron back?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll do it this time; you can write him back next time."

Hermione put up the last fallen book and turned. "Okay. Just tell him hi from me and that I'm glad he's having a good time."

Harry nodded then paused. "Should we tell Ron about… you know, the animagus thing?"

Hermione scowled as though she'd bitten into a sour apple. "Maybe best we don't for now. Our letters to Ron could be intercepted just as well as any owls to Sirius. Besides… well… you know, considering how _awfully_ difficult it is to become an animagus, perhaps we ought to not tell him until we actually do it. That way, if we _can't_…"

"We won't have to listen to him take the mickey out of us from now until the end of time for our 'stupid animagus idea'."

Hermione smiled in relief that Harry had said precisely what she'd been thinking. "Exactly, because you know Ron, he _would_."

"Yeah, he would. Right then, mum's the word. So, what do you want to do now?"

"Dunno. Fancy a run? My arms are still a bit sore yet for weights again, but I thought we might do a spot of running at the park, then maybe we could come back and try to work on the animagus project some more?"

"All right, meet you in the front room in a bit?"

Hermione nodded and left their schoolwork laid out on the table as she headed off to her room. Harry retreated to his own to change into more appropriate clothes, setting Ron's letter down on the dresser to remind him to pen a reply that evening.

* * *

He didn't get around to answering Ron's letter until dark that night. When he dragged back into his bedroom late that evening, tired from his run with Hermione that afternoon and surprisingly clear-headed after their 'nature' session (which, to Hermione's not-so-hidden consternation, had failed to yield any tokens), he saw Ron's letter awaiting his reply. He'd nearly forgotten it until that moment he saw it next to Hedwig's empty cage.

Though enormously tempted by his bed, he went to the dresser to see to the note before the day's end.

Harry took up the letter, pulled a quill and parchment from his trunk, then sat down on his bed and, with a potions book serving as an improvised desk, bent over his letter back to Ron.

_'Ron, _

Hermione and I got your letter. It's nice to hear from you. Hermione says 'hi' and wanted me to tell you she's glad you're having such a good time in Romania. She'll write back to you next time… we didn't figure Pig could carry a letter from each of us at the same time.'

Harry paused, shocked to find that it was actually hard to think of what else to say. Maybe it was the concern about what might be gleaned from his reply if the letter was taken by Voldemort's henchmen en route, but even the salutation came to him with effort. He frowned down at the parchment in confusion, consulted Ron's letter, then decided the easiest path would be to go about answering the questions Ron had either seriously or rhetorically put forth in his own correspondence.

_'Don't worry about not getting around to writing us; sounds like you're busy what with the dragons and all. Better you than me. Hermione and I are keeping busy, too.'_

Harry stopped, reread his words, and hoped nothing too telling could be taken from that. Try as he might, he couldn't see how their 'project' might be inferred from his words. He shrugged and continued.

_'Things are good here. I'm having a good time, and I'm pretty sure Hermione is, too. We've gotten all our homework done for the summer holiday already.'_ Harry didn't see a need to mention that pesky History of Magic that just seemed cursed to never find its way clear to completion. He tried to imagine Ron's face when he found out that his two friends were done while he would still undoubtedly have all his assignments looming over him. It brought him a small sense of victory and vindication. Harry stared a short time at the fresh ink letters on his parchment then slowly resumed. _'I really think you ought to lay off a bit on Hermione about the homework, mate. You know that's important to her. Just in bad taste to go on teasing her for it. Besides, since we've done our homework together I've finished mine in half the time it would have normally taken. Well worth it, if you ask me.'_

Harry stopped again, stumped for what else to say. Maybe it was fighting him because Ron wasn't one much for letters. Harry was good at talking to Ron, but writing to him felt weird. If this were a letter to Hermione he was sure it'd be much easier to write. He could just picture her lying on her stomach on her bed with his letter, one hand propping up her head as she read every word, pulling the surface and hidden meaning from every sentence, even if he had no bloody clue what the hidden meaning was. He could picture the way she'd be formulating her reply in her head even as she read his letter. When he tried to picture Ron, the image he conjured was always his friend in a rush, only barely stopping to take the time to read his mail, the way he read homework assignments, scanning and putting away as though the mere effort amounted to completion, hurrying off to do something more interesting. A check mark, a chore done, a task finished. He wouldn't take the time to really read what was being said. Ron was just like that.

Harry yawned sleepily and put pen back to paper. Knowing that Ron would only take note of the fact he had been written back, probably not so much what was said in the letter, he hurried through the rest.

'_Well, I'm totally knackered, Hermione and I have had a really full day and I'm sacked. Well past time to turn in. Give my best to your family. Tell your mum not to worry about me, I'm fine. Tell Ginny to watch herself. Look forward to seeing you again at start of term. _

'Harry and Hermione'

Harry rolled the parchment up, tied it, then put it on the dresser next to Hedwig's cage so he wouldn't forget to send it in the morning when Pig was back. He'd gone out for a bit of nighttime hunting with Hedwig, though Harry had no doubt his familiar had ditched the scatterbrained scoop as soon as possible.

Harry promptly changed into pajamas, crawled into bed, and within a matter of minutes was sound asleep.

* * *

Two more weeks of summer passed, and while the sheer tedium of the routine Harry and Hermione had established might have driven some teenagers to boredom, the pure simplicity and _safety_ of it was a gift in Harry's eyes.

Monday through Friday he and Hermione had the days alone to themselves while Miranda and Jake were at work. Harry, for the first time granted the luxury, discovered a bit of a passion for sleeping in. He'd not seen Miranda and Jake off to work for weeks, but once he knew that Hermione's parents didn't mind, he relished the simple pleasure of sleeping to late morning or noon that he'd never known before. At the Dursleys' he was expected to be up in time to cook his uncle breakfast and get an early start on his never-ending list of chores. At Hogwarts, it was hard to sleep in when bunking in a room with four other boys. At the Weasleys', there was always _something_ going on, be it Missus Weasley reading the riot act to Ron, the twins blowing something up in their room, or the ghoul in the attic bumbling about noisily. Harry had never been anywhere quiet enough to even think about sleeping in. And then he summered with the Grangers and found peace and quiet for the first time… and found he liked it. He felt like he was catching up on years of denied rest. He made sure, however, that he was always up in time to make lunch for himself, Hermione, and Miranda.

Hermione was always up early to bid her parents farewell; Harry usually came into the kitchen to start lunch to find her at the table reading. Sometimes she'd help him with lunch, usually she was better left reading aloud to him, either from whatever book she had or the muggle newspaper or the _Daily Prophet_, while he moved through the kitchen he was growing to know quite well. It was those simple noontimes that Harry would probably recall most fondly about his summer at the Grangers'. He felt so bloody normal, even when Kimmy was underfoot assisting him with meal preparations. When he was making scalloped potatoes at the stove while Hermione read to him from a muggle post, her bare feet swinging absently, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, Crookshanks sunbathing in the window, he could almost forget that he was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

After lunch, he and Hermione would do a bit of studying until their food had settled sufficiently for them to either run, swim, or lift weights. After that, it was lying out in the yard or by the pool having a 'nature' session. They found that after exercise it was easier to reach the proper state of mind. So far, neither Harry nor Hermione had 'tokened' anything, but Hermione wasn't about to give up and Harry honestly didn't mind the wasted afternoons. He didn't consider them 'wasted'. When he stopped to think about what might be in store for him next term, he was eager to waste as many unproductive, quiet days with Hermione as he humanly could.

In the evening Miranda and Jake would come home, they'd all have dinner at the table almost like a family, talking about their days, hearing stories from the office, deciding if they wanted to watch a movie or maybe head out to the ice cream parlor for a sweet treat after dinner, and Harry began to feel like maybe he wasn't such an imposter here. Miranda had taken to him, kind and level-headed, much like Hermione (nowhere near the strung terrier Molly Weasley was and not as affectionate toward him, and though Harry did love Ron's mom he realized he preferred Miranda's energy level), he could always talk Quidditch with Jake, and Hermione was Hermione. She could just sit there and say nothing and Harry would have a good time.

It drove thoughts of the Dursleys far from his mind, like the last vestiges of a bad dream long since past, and every now and then he let himself forget to remember Voldemort.

In dastardly defiance, Harry's History of Magic homework had not yet managed to get done. Wonderfully, that seemed to be the worst of Harry's problems.


	17. Chapter 17

Harry felt great. He felt light. He felt he could leave his body and take up with the wind that danced around his face. He felt he could be that weightless, that free and unthinking and pure. Always it seemed, when he shook his conscious thoughts, when he freed his mind of worldly concerns, he noticed the wind particularly. He remembered the feeling of so many Quidditch games when he'd been part mote, part falcon, airborne and uncatchable.

Then he noticed the way the sun touched his cheeks, the way the warmth and light seeped past his skin and settled pleasantly in his bones. The sun too, was his aerial companion. He danced with the sun, too, much as he knew instinctively what it was to race the wind, and when he released his worries like this, when he just _was_ under the sun, it was like he smiled properly for the first time at a beautiful creature that he'd known all along but had never rightly seen.

Then he'd remember the ground and the earth because it would be an immovable strength at his back. He fanned his fingers through the grass carpet and smiled inwardly at the way it prickled and gave way under his touch. Smooth and edgy at once. And the smell that effused him, the dirt and the grass and the trees… it smelled like Hogwarts, like the Quidditch pitch, like so many places that had been escape for him.

He was profoundly aware of the way his body lay spread on the ground, the way his legs and arms were heavy and lax upon the ground. He found enjoyment in every breath he took, every sweet rush of air inward, every relaxing exhale into the sky above. His heart thumped, slow and soothing in his chest, sometimes it seemed he could even ride on his own heartbeat, trace its way through his arms, his fingers, his legs, his neck. It was a heady, empowering sense of _aliveness_.

All around him were the gentle, whisper-light voices of the backyard. The wind in the trees, leaves rustling, birds singing, and even the unnatural, the manmade, the cars driving on the road beyond the Granger house, the occasional, faint human voice from next door, the fleeting broken bar of a musical piece. It all wove together, it fit and filled him, completed the absolute sense of being that doing this brought.

And as always, he was only too conscious of another body besides his. He'd stopped fighting his awareness of Hermione at his side. It became part of the canvas, without her he'd feel a hole in this harmony.

Even with his eyes closed he was acutely honed to the way Hermione lay at his side, similarly sprawled, likewise relaxed and unguarded. The sound of her breathing was integral to the peaceful place Harry's mind found when they had a 'session'. The physical space taken up by her body was as the earth beneath him, unrelenting and necessary. He could slip and mistake the soft sound of her breathing for the wind he cherished so. When the breeze blew just right he could smell her, familiar and safe and right in his world. He knew he probably shouldn't notice her as much as he did, not for the task they were attempting to master, but fighting it required more conscious thought than letting it be. He let her be part of his earth, his sun, his wind, and his mind sank so deeply into that peace. Sometimes he fell asleep. When he did it didn't matter.

Hermione's breathing moved on the wind, swept over him, filling his senses. It came with a leaf, fallen from the treetop overhead. It whirled gently, like a dancer, it pirouetted and paused and fluttered and Harry knew how it would feel to dip with it. Free and flying, he could be that leaf. Countless times in his life, he had been.

Harry, eyes closed, listened to the leaf land on the ground next to his ear. His wind-brother. One of the secret society of air dancers. He could see, in his mind, the uneven edges, the rich green color, the thick smell, the length of its stem, so light and at the mercy of the wind's whims. How ready it was to roll and take flight.

Harry gasped softly when a thought as though not his own slipped into his mind. Take this part of me. In that second there was a bond, a link, a oneness that bade Harry to reclaim that part of him before it was blown in the wind and lost.

Harry opened his eyes, jarred by the harsh light, and turned his head. The leaf lay where it had alighted, no different or better than any other, but Harry was compelled to claim that particular one. He rolled on to his side, sat up, and picked up the leaf. He stopped then to let thought return. He stared at the leaf in his hand and wondered, had he just taken a token? Was this what it felt like? Or did he merely think it could be, when perhaps he'd just had a silly moment when he'd been fascinated by a stupid leaf?

"Harry?"

Hermione's voice, gentle and dream-like, drew his eyes. He looked down at where she lay on the ground beside him. She was gazing up at him, expression sleepy and content, her hair spilling around her head and glinting honey-gold in places. Thought came crashing back with a vengeance. He looked a little foolishly at the leaf in his hand. Hermione's eyes followed his and he saw the blissful, untroubled peace of a 'session' leave her face, replaced by astute and intellectual Hermione.

"Oh! Did you… is that…?"

Harry shrugged. "I… don't know. I was just lying there, and then I thought, well, kind of dumb what I thought, and then I just had this feeling like I had to take it…" Harry twirled the ordinary leaf between his fingers by the stem and shook his head, "you know, it's probably not, I'm sure it was just…"

Hermione sat up quickly. "No! Don't think on it, keep it. I'll bet you anything it's a token, Harry. What did it feel like?"

Harry struggled to recapture the transient, amorphous feeling that had driven him to snatch up a regular leaf. "Um… like, for a second there, it was a bit like this was…" Harry felt stupid, "part of me."

Hermione was grinning. "I'm sure you've done it, Harry!" Hermione gazed openly at the leaf Harry held. For a brief moment jealousy and resolute determination crossed her face, then she said, "We should find something to keep our tokens in." Hermione leapt up from the ground and hurried toward the house. Harry, smiling to himself at Hermione's quintessential _Hermioneness_, got up at a much more leisurely pace and followed her.

He caught up with her at the door to her bedroom. He leaned against the jamb and watched her hunt about her room for only she knew what. She dug through her dresser drawer and then, with a muted cry of triumph, stood with a cloth sack in hand.

"This should do," she proclaimed, went to her bed, and proceeded to dump the contents of the bag on to her bedspread. A sea of marbles spilled out and rolled sluggishly over the thick blanket. She turned and offered him the empty bag. Harry tucked his still-supple leaf into the sack while Hermione rummaged further in her drawer and withdrew a second marble bag. She upturned that one, too, over her bed and considered the container closely. "We probably ought keep these with us, I should think. We don't know when a token will happen." She stuffed her empty back into her pocket. Harry did the same with his and stepped into the room as Hermione began to gather up the mess of marbles.

"Lot of marbles," he commented as means of questioning why she had them at all.

Hermione stammered awkwardly. "Oh, yeah, well… our second year I got them for Ron for Christmas. I don't know, I thought he'd like them for some reason." She shrugged and collected the balls into a pile.

"Why didn't you give them to him?"

Hermione fetched a loner sock from her drawer and began to pour handfuls of marbles into it. "I meant to, I had them in my trunk and everything, I was going to give them to him before I left for the holiday… then I came across you two playing wizard's chess and he was going on and on about how great it is, and I figured that if he was so enamored of wizard's chess he'd probably think a muggle game like marbles would be fairly stupid. They don't explode or fly through the air or anything, they're just some silly glass balls. I decided I'd rather not have him make fun of me for my boring muggle toys."

"No, I think he would have liked them," Harry offered honestly.

Hermione shrugged. "Well, I could still give them to him, I suppose. Maybe I'll take them back to Hogwarts with us and give them to Ron on the Express. He'll have to do with a sock for a bag, though." She smiled and hefted the white sock laden with marbles. She cocked her head as though in serious thought, "Or I guess I could just hit him with them next time he starts acting like a prat." Hermione swung the weighted sock around for emphasis.

Harry chuckled. "Put you on a broom while you take a swing at him and you might make a good beater yet."

Hermione snorted, tied in a knot at the ankle end of the sock, and tossed it back into her drawer. "I don't think so. I'll leave flying to the birds and Harry Potter."

"Well, look at it this way, maybe your animagus form will be a bird and then you can fly with me."

Hermione smiled in a playful, jesting way at what was clearly a joke, but the barest hint of a blush touched the center of her cheeks. Harry felt an odd, answering heat in his face. Hermione gave him a crooked, 'silly boy' smile. "Harry, if either of us is going to be a bird it'll be you."

Harry sat down on the edge of Hermione's bed. "Oh, I'm sure I'll be a beaver or a blast-ended skrewt or something. That'll really strike fear into the hearts, eh?"

Hermione laughed. "You won't be a beaver, that's preposterous."

"Do you actually know if we can find out what our animagus forms will be before we actually, you know, change?"

Hermione returned to the bed and sat down beside him, their shoulder's touching. "I've found nothing in any of my research that says you can. Common knowledge regarding animagi says there's not a way to find out before the first transformation happens."

"So I _could_ be a beaver," Harry pressed and nudged Hermione with his shoulder.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, you _could_ be a beaver. But I really doubt it. I think Neville might be a beaver, though."

Harry laughed then trailed into silence. He glanced over at Hermione, studied his knees, then said, "Hermione? Are you… nervous about the change?"

Hermione frowned in thought and stared at her wall, unseeing as she turned over his question. "I guess a little. I think it's more curiosity, wondering what it is I'm going to be, than being afraid to change. Assuming I ever manage it at all." She ducked her head and cut an embarrassed sideways look at him. "Honestly, I think I'm more nervous about not being able to do it. It _is_ a very hard thing to do, and you can't just study extra hard..." She turned her head to look fully at him. "Are you? Nervous?"

Harry looked away. "The more I think about it the more I… yeah, I'm nervous." Harry tapped the heel of his left shoe against the floor and watched his trainer bounce to avoid looking Hermione in the eye. "Just that, well, things that come out of me that I don't control are usually… bad things. Voldemort things. Guess I'm a bit worried what I'll become."

"Harry, listen to me. There may not be a way to know what your animagus form will be before you change, but _never_ has a wizard's animagus form been out of his character. You won't be anything bad, you won't turn evil or mad when you become whatever it is you're bound to be, because it's not _you_. Even if you became a _basilisk_, which you _won't_, you'd be the only basilisk I'd trust with my life."

Harry smiled faintly at her, inordinately reassured. She returned the smile and, on impulse, reached up to brush his hair back from his forehead. Involuntarily, his eyes closed. His world became, for that moment, the way her fingers threaded through his unruly hair.

"Have you considered getting a haircut, Harry?"

Harry opened his eyes, a bit taken off guard by her question, so lost had he been in the touch. "Huh?"

Hermione smiled and dropped her hand back to her lap. "Well, it's a bit out of control, even for you."

"Oh, yeah, I suppose it is," Harry ruffled his own collar-length hair with his hand, a rueful smirk touching his lips. "Aunt Petunia usually whacks at it with the kitchen scissors soon as I'm back at Privet Drive for summer holiday. I kind of forgot about it. What, don't you like it all scruffy?" he asked playfully.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I like being able to see your face."

"I could cut it. Or you could, I guess."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, dear, no, you don't want me near it with a pair of scissors, not when we can't just spell away any mistakes. Mum'd probably do it, though. She's cut my hair and Dad's since as long as I can remember. She wouldn't botch it. If she doesn't foul up _mine_ yours will be a cinch."

"Well, has to be better than Aunt Petunia's slash and dash technique. Though I'm not sure _anyone_ could tame my mop."

"Nonsense. Mum will, you'll see."

* * *

Miranda studied Harry critically, as an artist might a half-done sculpture. She had a pair of sewing scissors in her hand and was tapping them against her chin as her eyes narrowed in Harry's direction. Harry shifted uncomfortably in the chair in the middle of the kitchen. Miranda was standing in front of him, occasionally leaning to the left and right, sizing up her prey, Harry's unendingly unmanageable hair.

Hermione and Jake were outside grilling; Jake had come home from the office after suffering an especially irksome patient and quite abruptly proclaimed the desire to char meat, and (in what was clearly a practiced ritual in the Granger household) Hermione and her father scuttled outside to see to their outdoor meal while Miranda ambushed Harry. Once Hermione mentioned Harry was hoping to get a haircut, Miranda pounced as though she'd been waiting for the invitation.

Harry cleared his throat as Miranda fingered the handle of the scissors like an Auror might handle his wand.

"It's hopeless, Missus Granger; I tried to tell Herm—"

"Nonsense," Miranda retorted, cutting Harry off mid-sentence. He had to smile a little. Like mother like daughter.

Miranda stepped closer and ran her fingers through Harry's hair, as though testing the thickness and length. It didn't feel as good as when Hermione did it, but it was still rather nice.

"Do you have a certain length you like to keep it?"

Harry shrugged. "Not really. I guess, if anything, I like it a bit longer in the front, so I can… uh, well, so that it covers my scar."

Miranda brushed his hair back and exposed the lightning scar. Harry tensed uneasily. So many people had done that to him, like his scar was public domain, and now Hermione's mother, too. Just when she'd become a safe person she made the assumption that perfect strangers felt entitled to commit. He knew she meant nothing by it, that as a muggle his mark wouldn't have the same importance to her, but still it rattled him.

Miranda didn't seem to notice his discomfort. She brought his hair back over his brow and hummed under her breath. "Well, I think we could trim back quite a bit and still have it cover your scar." Harry breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to question him or bother him about wanting to hide the mark on his forehead. He didn't rightly know how it could be fully explained to a muggle, even smart ones like Miranda and Jake Granger.

"Are you _sure_ you want _me_ to cut it?"

"Uh huh. Way I figure, if it's anything too dreadful, once Hermione and I are back on the train to Hogwarts she can spell it back to the way it was before."

"Oh, cheeky, aren't you?" Miranda chuckled and moved closer. "All right then, here goes."

Harry sat still and listened to the snip of the scissors, watched from the corner of his eye the locks of black fall past his shoulder, as Miranda cut and combed and eyeballed and ruffled. Hermione and Jake toiled merrily in the backyard, and just as the smell of hamburgers began to drift deliciously into the kitchen Miranda stepped back and brushed at one of Harry's shoulders. "There, I think that will do."

Harry stood and looked down at the kitchen floor and the shocks of black hair against the pale tile.

"Go on," Miranda gestured toward the hall, "have a look see, I'll just clear this up."

"I can…" Harry moved to help.

"Not until you see what's been done to you, you may not want to offer help," Miranda smiled at him.

Harry chuckled and went to the bathroom. The first sight of his reflection in the mirror shocked him, only because it was different from the sight he'd grown used to seeing. It wasn't anything drastic, he still had a long fringe in front that fell over his forehead, and the sides were still long enough not to make the front look silly, and there were the strands of the damnable cowlick in back, but all in all, it was probably the best his hair had ever looked. It looked like it had been cut by someone who _cared_ what the end product looked like. At least it no longer touched his collar in the back. He brought up both hands and raked his fingers through his hair. Stray bits fell to the floor and Harry made a mental note to come back in and clean up later. He looked at his frazzled hair. The front stood up in places, the cowlick was going mad, but the sides were an evenly-cut chaos. Worlds better than it had ever been before for that alone. He proceeded to brush his fingers more purposefully through his hair, lying the bangs back over his forehead, smoothing down the sides, dueling with the cowlick until only a few stubborn locks held firm their ground, sticking up defiantly.

"Harry! Dinner!"

Harry turned from the mirror at Miranda's call and left the bathroom.

He stepped out into the backyard to find Miranda and Hermione at the picnic table (in reality a collapsible table brought out and covered with a cotton cloth), setting out biscuits and salads while Jake placed slabs of meat on to waiting buns. Kimmy was circling the grill expectantly, as if she wanted to make sure Jake couldn't forget about her in her dog guise. Crookshanks was perched on the outside kitchen window ledge, watching the proceedings with aplomb. Hedwig was on a branch in the yard's tree next to the garden, watching with sleepy amber eyes.

Hermione looked up from the pitcher of iced tea and her eyes landed on Harry at the back door. He had barely begun to offer a bashful smile when she exclaimed, "Oh, Harry, it looks great!" She hurried to him and began to pet him, her hands in his hair without so much as a by your leave. It was no less presumptuous than Miranda earlier, but Harry found he minded Hermione's incursions far less. "I told you Mum could work wonders. How dashing."

Harry blushed. "Errr… it sticks up in back."

Miranda grunted. "Nothing outside of magic is going to fix that, my dear. I tried every non-magical trick in the book and there's nothing for it."

"I don't know if I'd recognize Harry without his hair at least a little wild," Hermione said to her mother then turned and smiled at him, "part of your charm, really."

Harry smiled a little goofily at her.

"All right, enough primping, you three, time to eat," Jake said as he carried hamburgers to the table. Hermione left Harry's side to join her family and Harry, after running a quick hand through his new haircut, followed after her. Five chairs had been set, one for each Granger, one for Harry, and one for Kimmy. She jumped up into the chair and though she held her dog form she had a place set for her and was served just as the humans seated at the table.

Hermione started into her meal but continued to cast appraising, appreciative glances in Harry's direction. It made it hard for Harry to concentrate on his food, but the attention was rather flattering. For someone who tended to shy away from being noticed, he rather liked the way Hermione kept looking at him like that.

"You should have gotten to him before the Yule Ball," Hermione turned and said to her mother. "That haircut, plus his dress robes," Hermione returned her eyes to him, a twinkle in her eye… and then it faded and her smile dropped a fraction. "Cho Chang would have noticed."

Harry swallowed and bit back a frown. He didn't know that he liked Hermione bringing up Cho like that. He certainly didn't like the way it dropped the joviality in her voice and dampened the glow in her face. "Oh, er…"

"Cho?" Miranda questioned after lowering her glass of tea.

"A girl Harry fancies," Hermione replied.

Jake looked critically a Harry but said nothing.

"I don't know about _fancy_."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Harry, you were a mess over her last term. Everyone could tell you like her."

Harry sank down in his chair and locked his eyes on his plate.

"So what's this Cho girl like if Harry thinks so much of her?" Miranda asked.

"Ravenclaw girl in the year ahead of us. Quidditch player, really smart, very pretty," Hermione answered.

Harry quite abruptly was fed up with the discussion. Yes, he had been a bit of a buffoon last term over Cho, but in hindsight, taking into consideration the bigger picture, it was a downright foolish thing to carry on about. What did a little teenage crush matter when people were dying? "And I couldn't even talk to her without making a fool of myself," he retorted. "And she's not half as smart as Hermione.

"Just as well she didn't go with me to the ball," Harry glanced at Hermione across the table and smirked, "if I tripped over myself saying 'hi' we would have been a disaster trying to dance. At least with you I had a good time."

Hermione smiled at him, blushed, and Harry felt the knot of tension in his gut loosen. The bothered, upset look on her face was gone. Harry felt an inane sense of pride and relief.

"That's right," Jake cut in, completely unaware of the moment that had flashed between the two youngsters. "Our Hermione learned to dance last year. I never would have believed that in a million years. Go on then, honey, give us a demonstration."

Hermione's eyes widened. "What?"

Harry chortled.

'Yes, do," Miranda urged. "Your father and I can hardly imagine you dancing, it's just so far from schoolwork. We really must see this."

Hermione looked like a deer in the headlights. Harry laughed. Hermione shot him a look and scowled. "I don't know what you're so amused about, I'll need a dance partner."

Harry stopped laughing. He blurted, "But there's no music."

"Use your imagination," Miranda chuckled and waved them toward the open yard.

Hermione and Harry met gazes, shared a mutual shrug, then stood from the table and moved out on to the grass. Miranda, Jake, and Kimmy all watched. Harry and Hermione came to a stop a few paces out, stood facing one another, and, with an awkward pause, Hermione moved in to Harry and lifted her arms to lay one on his shoulder and crooked the other for his hand to take hers. Harry took her hand and placed the other on her waist with an uncomfortable awareness of Jake watching over his shoulder.

Hermione turned her eyes up to him and a startled look swept over her expression. Harry frowned in confusion while Hermione took a half-step back, still held in the dance pose, and swept her eyes down his body, all the way to his trainers. Harry felt her look like a physical touch and cleared his throat to try and clear the block that lodged in his chest. Hermione looked up at him again and gaped, "Harry, you've grown!"

"Huh?"

"I swear, you're a full inch taller than you were when we danced at the Yule Ball."

Harry frowned at the suggestion but had to admit that Hermione did seem a bit shorter than the last time they'd stood like this. Odd. And strangely visceral when he really gave Hermione's size that much thought.

"Come on, you two, enough stalling," Jake prodded.

Hermione blushed, shook her head to move her hair back behind her shoulders, and lifted her chin in a clear indication that she was ready.

Harry gave a sheepish shrug and nodded. Then he moved forward. He was sure, if it had been Cho, he would have trod on her foot. But Hermione knew how to read him and she moved just as he did. They danced, and it was a little stilted without music to set the pace, and they weren't exactly old pros at it, and Hermione's chuckle told Harry he was counting under his breath, but they managed without a foul up.

Of course, that there weren't any mishaps might have been aided by the fact that they had only been dancing for a minute when a distraction presented itself. Miranda saw it first and spoke up, "Hermione, isn't that your friend Ron's owl?"

Harry and Hermione stopped and looked up and, sure enough, Pigwidgeon was flapping toward them. And he was moving in a straight line, very unusual for the scatterbrained bird.

Hedwig gave a disgruntled hoot and took off, gliding down to Harry's open bedroom window and disappearing inside before the scoop owl reached the yard.

Pig made a beeline for Harry and landed in an exhausted heap in his waiting hands. There he laid still, little chest heaving, wings spread as though in surrender. Hermione looked down at the bird and frowned sympathetically. "Oh, poor Pig."

Harry smiled. "Think the flight from Romania and back is a bit much for him," then he took the rolled note from Pig's leg. Pig gave a hoot and wearily closed his eyes. Harry handed the note to Hermione (who put it in her pocket) and carried Pig to the table. Hermione made up a small plate for him and a bowl of water. "We should probably give him some owl pellets, too; I don't imagine hamburger is really in the owl keeper handbook chapter on dietary needs."

Harry set Pig down before the food and water. "Probably right. I'll go get them." Harry went back into the house, into his room, and riffled through the dresser drawer under Hedwig's cage. Hedwig eyed him as he retrieved a handful of owl food pellets then returned to the table in the backyard. Pig was drinking thirstily but set upon the pellets eagerly when Harry set them down before the bird.

Hermione returned to her own meal, as did Harry, and as she ate she watched Pig. "Maybe we should give him a bit of a rest before we send him back," Hermione suggested, "or let him stay here for a trip and send Hedwig when we answer Ron this time."

Harry looked at the exhausted little owl and had to agree.

By the time everyone finished eating Pig had drunk and eaten his fill and was sleeping on the table next to the pitcher of tea. Harry and Hermione cleared the table while Miranda and Jake sat outside talking. He never stopped long enough to catch the line of conversation, but Harry thought it had to do with when Miranda and Jake were young. At one point he went out to put away the table and the sleeping owl and saw them dancing in the yard, cheek to cheek. Harry froze, like he'd seen something illicit, then hurriedly gathered up Pig and the table and left them. His breathing was strangely rapid, and as he tucked away the folding table he realized he'd looked at Hermione's parents and was reminded of the wizard photograph of his parents dancing in front of a fountain. It had hit him unaware to see Miranda and Jake doing the same thing and he'd been surprised. He hadn't expected to see parents the way pictures had shown his.

Harry was in his room tucking a tired Pig into Hedwig's cage (the whole time Hedwig glaring at him like he was putting a dirty sock in her bed), when Hermione came into the room, face screwed in concentration as she held Ron's letter in front of her.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked up at him and seemed to search his face for something. "What did you say to Ron in your letter?"

"What do you mean?" he asked and crossed the room. Hermione handed him the letter and he read it.

_'Harry, Hermione, _

'I know I should have written sooner; I got your letter and put it in my room and it ended up underneath a stack of laundry. Didn't find it again until I was putting away clothes.

'Sounds like the pair of you are having a decent summer. Good. You two both deserved a break. We've only two more weeks in Romania before we head back to the Burrow. Harry, if you like, you're welcome to come stay the rest of the summer with us. Mum would love to have you, she's been doing a fair amount of fretting about you. I keep telling her you're fine, but you know my mum.

'And Hermione knows I don't mean anything by what I said. I was just having a bit of fun.

'Romania's been great fun, but it'll be nice to get back home. I miss my own bed, and I think it's best we leave before Ginny sets her sight on some other ruddy dragon-keeper. She finally figured out that Aussie was a git! I knew my sister had some sense, now to get her out of here before she fancies another one!

'Oh, and Hermione, if you wanted to come stay at the Burrow a while too, that'd be great. Maybe you could help me out with a spot of my homework, too?

'Gotta run. Charlie's going to let me get in on flight training with some of the fledglings this afternoon! Up on a broom with dragons! I figure I might find out what had you so twitchy, Harry. Ha ha!

'Best,

'Ron'

Harry looked up at Hermione and she was watching him curiously. "What does he mean when he said 'he doesn't mean anything by it'?"

"Oh, that," Harry folded the letter and ran his finger over the edges absently. "I told him to stop teasing you about wanting to do homework over the holiday."

"Oh," Hermione said, her expression withdrawn and guarded. She looked away then at length returned her eyes to him. "You didn't have to do that."

"Ron shouldn't have done it in the first place. Besides," Harry flicked the letter with a finger, "when it comes to him needing help he's not quite so mean about it, is he?"

Hermione smirked. "Ron's always been that way, you know that."

"Yeah," Harry frowned, "and I ought to have called him on it before. Ron and I would have flunked out a long time ago if it weren't for you. I don't know if I've ever thanked you for that, but thanks."

Hermione smiled. She shuffled her feet and moved a step to the side, angling toward his bed. "So…" she sat on the edge and ran her hand over the comforter, resolutely not meeting his eyes, "you think you'll be going to stay the rest of the holiday at the Burrow?"

Harry blinked and studied her. She was trying not to let on that it would bother her if he did. Ron had done it again. He'd apologized, in his own way, for ribbing her about doing homework, but he'd managed to cut her down again with something else. Unintentionally, but he'd still done it. Ron had an uncanny knack for it, it seemed.

Harry went to the bed and sat down beside her. "If it's all right with you and your parents, I'd actually rather stay here."

Hermione looked up at him, cautious hope in her eyes. "Really?"

He nodded. "Don't get me wrong, you know I really like the Weasleys, they're like a surrogate family to me in a way and they've been great to me over the years, but it's so much calmer here. Quieter. Guess I never noticed the difference before this summer, but I've grown a bit fond of it. Besides, we still have work to do on our 'project'."

"True. Although we don't technically have to be together to do that."

"Maybe not, but it being quieter here I think would make it easier. Could you imagine trying to meditate at the Burrow with the twins blowing things up and Ginny running around and Ron being Ron?"

Hermione laughed. "I imagine it would be difficult."

"And I _am_ having a good time here. And if next year I…" Harry stopped and pulled away slightly. "Well, if anything bad happens next year I'll want to have had this time with you."

Hermione's face twisted with pain and she leaned over and put her arms around his neck. Harry returned the hug and closed his eyes. This was one of those memories he'd want to carry into any final moment. This was why he needed to stay.

All too soon Hermione pulled away and he noticed that she quickly wiped at her eyes. "I'm glad you're staying," she said in a frail voice to match the tiny but lovely smile that curved her lips.

Harry smiled back then handed Hermione Ron's letter. "Here, your turn to write him back."

Hermione took the letter, studied it a moment, then looked over her shoulder at Pig sleeping like the dead in Hedwig's cage. "If they're going to be back at the Burrow in two weeks might as well wait until they're home to send a reply. The Burrow's a lot closer than Romania, Pig won't have trouble making that trip."

"Hedwig won't like having him around for two weeks," Harry quipped, "but that sounds like a good idea. Doubtless Pig will be eternally grateful."

Hermione stood to leave the room but stopped, fidgeted awkwardly, then turned to face him. "Harry… thank you."

"For what?"

Hermione tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, clearly anxious. "For… telling Ron off for making fun of me."

Harry frowned, troubled by the meek gratitude in her words. He stood and moved a step closer. Now he couldn't help but notice the height difference she'd pointed out in the yard. "That's the second time you've thanked me for standing up for you. Do you not expect me to?" He was surprised to find the thought bothered him. A lot.

Hermione gave a dismissive (and unconvincing) shrug. "Oh, I know if it were life or death, werewolves or Dementors or Death Eaters, there's not a question. I know you would in a second. Just… teasing's a bit different, and Ron _is_ your best friend. I… well, I know it takes a lot for you to take sides between the two of us."

"You're right that I don't like to, but sometimes Ron's wrong. Actually, he's wrong a lot more than you are. Ron's my friend, but you are, too. We're all supposed to be friends. He should treat you like one."

"He does… mostly. More than anyone else except you." That settled ill in Harry's bones but before he could rise up to confront it Hermione pushed it away, "Well, I better get on this letter."

Harry didn't point out that she had two weeks to work on it, because she was clearly seeking an out. He didn't say anything as she turned and left his bedroom.


	18. Chapter 18

Black shadows shimmered at the edges of the room, swallowing the walls, coating the ceiling… they pulsed and surged then moved because they were living. Except not. The room was full of Dementors, their cloaked figures lingering, hovering, stalking, everywhere, surrounding and allowing no hope for escape. The air was bitterly cold, deathly cold. The smell of rotting flesh permeated the air, escaping the Dementors' lifeless mouths.

"Where is the boy?" came a voice. Chilly and sinister, low and hissing, slicing the air as a snake cut through grass. So cold, death sidling closer.

In the center of the room, the eye of the Dementor storm, were two figures. One tall and pale, bald and imperious. His eyes were abnormal, inhuman, serpentine. He had two slits for nostrils, there was no nose. His robes were made of black, airy material, as though he'd borrowed from the Dementors to clothe himself. He moved like a Dementor, gliding and ominous, dangerous and thirsting for death. He bared pointed teeth at the human figure before him. He was Voldemort.

The second person, a man, was doubled over on his knees before the dark lord. But he was not pledging or cowing. He was dying. He was breathing raggedly through broken ribs, he was coughing up blood on the floor by Voldemort's feet. His hands were useless, the fingers broken, unable to hold a wand. He curled his arms, tried to protect his crushed hands. It wouldn't matter. He was dead. He only breathed now, his heart only beat still, because there was something more than his life the dark lord demanded.

"I will not ask you again. Where is he?"

The man almost toppled, nearly collapsed to the floor, but he would not. He fought to stay at least on his knees. He'd lost the chance to die on his feet, but he'd not be killed on his back. "You…" he spat blood, sucked in a broken, wheezing breath, "should know better… than to expect… an Auror to… to answer you."

"Oh, but you will." The flick of a wand, the whisper like a gentle caress around the word "_Crucio_".

The man screamed and his body convulsed. A spurt of blood erupted from his mouth. The Dementors swirled closer, crows sensing a corpse soon. The air went from cold to frigid. Not long now, life was loosing hold.

Voldemort released the curse's hold. The man gasped and coughed. Blood pooled around his knees. His boneless, shapeless hands shook.

"The boy," Voldemort reminded the Auror venomously.

"I don't know… where he is."

Voldemort flicked his wand again, hissed in parseltongue, and the man cried hoarsely as both his forearms broke.

"Is his life worth yours, _Auror_?"

The Auror turned bloodshot eyes, sunken in a pale face, up to the dark lord. "_Yes_."

Magic, dark magic, surged like fire. Ice fire, a wall of cold burning just as sharply, surging with the dark lord's rage. The Dementors keened and circled the room faster, seeming to set it spinning. The Auror offered a last, blood-framed smile of defiance.

"_Avada Kedavra!!_"

Harry bolted awake, opening his mouth to gasp for air, to scream, to cry, and instead he vomited. He gagged and coughed and finally was able to breathe. He sucked in air like he'd been underwater fighting to the surface.

In chunks his surroundings came back to him, starting inside and spreading out. He could feel the icy fear in his gullet, gripping his bones, breaking out on his skin in a cold sweat. He was shaking. He bent forward and grabbed his head where his scar seared painfully. His pulse throbbed, fiery hot on his brow, ice cold in his veins.

It was dark, night… he was in bed. The covers were twisted around his legs, the putrid smell of bile rose from the wet, warm pool of vomit between his knees. The silence of the night squeezed him, compressed him, and he wanted to scream but the cry would be worse than the quiet.

He hunkered in bed that way, hand over his scar, stomach roiling, heart racing, for several minutes before chaos began to settle. The night became innocuous, observer rather than attacker, and Harry shuddered. The pain in his scar slowly receded and Harry brought down his hand.

He stared down with night-adjusted eyes at the mess in his bed and his chest ached. Panic licked in a different direction. The mess he'd made, the trouble he'd be in for throwing up all over himself.

Harry dragged himself out of bed, put on his glasses, then gathered up his soiled bedding to clean up after himself.

* * *

Miranda wasn't sure what woke her up, perhaps the same innate sense that used to rouse her in the dead of night to find Hermione was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. Much like she'd risen then, Miranda woke and slipped out of bed. Something was amiss, something she couldn't pinpoint. The house's quiet wasn't the peaceful silence of content sleep.

Faint sounds from the laundry room and a sliver of light from under the door drew Miranda like a moth to a flame. She pushed open the door and blinked.

Harry was at the washing machine, manhandling his bedspread into the open appliance. The room smelled awful, like sickness. Harry was alone in the room, standing there wearing only a T shirt and boxer shorts.

"Harry?"

Harry whirled away from the washing machine and set wide, scared eyes on her. "I'm sorry!"

Miranda moved into the room, frowning. "Sorry?" When she got closer she could see Harry's clothes were damp with sweat, sweat that still glistened on his face. Her sleep-mused confusion began to inch toward genuine concern.

"I threw up, but I'll clean it up," Harry looked desperately at the smelly blanket half-stuffed into the washing machine.

Maternal instinct reared its head when it clicked. Harry was sick. That was the thing amiss in her home. She studied Harry a moment, the sweaty brow, the damp hair, and she moved without thought. She reached up to touch his forehead to check for a fever as she'd done with Hermione more times than she could count.

Harry jumped back. He shied from her hand and tensed, waiting.

Miranda, for the first time since the boy had come into her home, wanted to hold him as she'd seen her daughter hug him. He was bracing to be hit. What that meant made Miranda equal parts furious and devastated.

"Harry… I'm not going to hurt you."

Harry looked warily at her, eyes still glassy and expression tight. He didn't look quite fully awake. Miranda beckoned him gently to come closer. "I just wanted to see if you have a fever."

Harry hesitated, never took his eyes off her, then he stepped closer. Miranda carefully brought up her hand and ran her fingers under his bangs, brought her palm to rest on his forehead. Harry was shivering but he stood rigidly still.

Miranda frowned. He wasn't running a fever, in fact, his skin was cold. Disturbingly cold.

Harry pulled away and moved to continue shoving his blanket into the machine. "I'll clean it, I promise."

Miranda caught his arm gently, simultaneously touched his shoulder with her other hand, and said softly, "Harry, don't worry about that."

"But I…" Harry looked up at her, expression lost.

"Shhh… it's okay, I'll tend to that. I want you to come lie down. Do you feel like you'll be sick again?"

Harry blinked at her, uncomprehending, then he mutely shook his head. Miranda softly worked Harry's hands free of the blanket. He didn't want to let go.

"Missus Granger?"

Miranda turned and saw Kimmy in a pair of pink silk boxers (a gift from Hermione) standing in the door to the laundry room. Her eyes were wide and worried as she looked between Miranda and Harry. "Is there trouble?"

Miranda unconsciously tugged Harry closer to her. Harry held himself tensely at her side but didn't fight or try to pull away. "Harry's not feeling well. Could you do me a favor and fetch him a clean shirt?"

Kimmy nodded and vanished.

Miranda, with some coaxing and light tugging, led Harry out of the laundry room and into the living room. She turned on a single light and steered Harry toward the couch. Kimmy showed up with a fresh shirt and a moist washcloth that smelled faintly of wildflowers. Miranda took both and nearly kissed the elf on the top of her head for her forethought. Instead, she said, "Thank you. Do you know where the spare linens are?" She'd never shown the elf where anything in the house was, she'd never asked nor expected Kimmy to do any housework, but so far Kimmy had seemed to know where to find everything.

Kimmy nodded and dashed off again. Miranda turned back to Harry, who was standing and staring blankly at the living room.

"Harry, dear, take off your shirt."

Harry blinked at her, gaze empty and dazed, then he did as told and peeled off the damp, smelly shirt.

Miranda took the washcloth and gave his torso a quick wipe-down, trying to rid him of some of the sweat and stench before she had him change into a clean shirt. She slid the wet cloth up the back of his neck and over shoulders without drawing a response. Harry stood still, almost comatose, while Miranda cleaned him off. Kimmy returned with a blanket and pillow, which she wisely put on the couch.

"Thank you, Kimmy," Miranda said, "I can see to it from here."

Kimmy opened her mouth to protest, to insist she tend to Harry, but perhaps she recognized a mother's touch and felt it was more fitting than a house elf's, for she gave in and disappeared.

"Missus Granger?" Harry's cracking voice brought Miranda back to her task.

"Harry?" she came around to look him in the eye. The glazed look was dissipating and it was some semblance of Harry looking at her again. He looked confused, exhausted, frightened, and embarrassed all at once. He self-consciously brought up his arms and crossed them over his bare chest. Miranda backed off with the washcloth. "What happened?"

Harry blinked a few times then his brow furrowed. "I had a nightmare," he said lowly. "I woke up and… I'm sorry. I was a little confused. I thought… I thought I was at the Dursleys'." Harry tucked tighter into himself, as if he could disappear if he just wished for it hard enough.

Miranda felt an anger she rarely experienced race through her. She forced calm into her lest she upset Harry, lest he think she was angry at him.

Harry looked vulnerable standing there in just his boxers.

"Here you are, honey," Miranda gave him the clean shirt. Harry startled, glanced up at her as though she'd done something unimaginable, then took the shirt and put it on. He rubbed at his forehead a moment then looked back toward the hall, in the direction of the bedrooms. "I'll just go finish cleaning up…"

"You'll do no such thing." Harry froze then turned to look uncertainly at her. Miranda offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'll take care of that, I don't want you to worry about it." She put down the washcloth on the coffee table and stepped closer to Harry. Careful not to move too quickly, she brought up her hand to feel his forehead again. Harry tensed, but not nearly as badly as he had before. He was still cool to the touch, but not as cold as he'd been before.

"How do you feel?" she asked gently, without thought raking her fingers through his damp hair then moving to rest her palm upon his cheek as she tried to bring his face up so she might look into his eyes.

Harry's jaw was working but he couldn't seem to make any words come out. He looked up at her, agape, swallowed, and pulled back from Miranda. He looked unsure.

She didn't want to push him, he seemed so fragile right now.

"Lie down," Miranda bade and directed Harry to the couch. When Harry hesitated she said, "We'll see to putting clean linens on your bed in the morning, for now I want you to sleep on the couch."

Watching her with a strange look on his face, Harry wordlessly lay down on the couch, turned on his back, placed his head on the pillow, and looked up at Miranda with an openly questioning light in his eyes. Miranda covered him with the blanket, pulled it up to his chin, then sat down on the edge of the couch beside him. Harry stared up at her. He looked like he was setting eyes upon an alien creature the way he was staring at Miranda, something almost akin to both wonder and disbelief.

Miranda tried to dismiss it as she gently took his glasses off and placed them on the coffee table. "Are you comfortable?"

Harry nodded dumbly.

"Do you need anything? Something to drink, maybe a nice cup of chicken broth?"

Harry pressed his lips tightly together and for a moment he stopped breathing. Miranda, concerned, leaned closer and rested her hand on his unmoving chest.

"I… no," he finally replied.

Miranda brushed her hand over his hair again. "Well, if you need anything you wake me, okay?"

Harry breathed unevenly and gave a half-nod.

"All right then, feel better," Miranda said and, without thinking, bent forward and placed a kiss on Harry's forehead. She hadn't planned to do it, it was what she'd done so many times for Hermione when she was sick that it came to her second nature. When Miranda drew back she saw tears in Harry's eyes.

Harry draped one of his arms over his eyes, hiding the tears, though nothing could conceal the way his chest hitched and his lips trembled. Miranda could see the fight he was putting up to not show her the weakness of crying. In kindness, in consideration of Harry's unspoken wish, she got up and left the room when everything in her told her to stay and console him, to mother him. She left him alone and went to his room where she stripped the bed of the remaining sheets. She went to the laundry room and finished the task Harry had begun in a nearly semiconscious state of mind. It was some time later that she passed by the living room yet again on her way back to bed. There wasn't a sound from the boy on the couch, he'd not made so much as a peep, and Miranda let him be. As she walked by she could swear she saw, in the corner of the dark living room, the glint of reflected light off a pair of orb-shaped eyes.

Though Miranda had not been raised to trust a magical creature such as an elf with such an important task, she trusted Kimmy to keep watch over Harry.


	19. Chapter 19

Jake was always the first one up in the morning. His and Miranda's alarm clock had two settings. He rose on the first and Miranda slept until the second alarm forty-five minutes later. Miranda preferred the extra sleep; Jake liked to be up earlier and ease into the day instead of dashing from bed to out the door.

Jake shuffled into the kitchen and went to the coffee pot… only to find it was already brewing. Kimmy, Harry's little house elf, had taken to making the coffee herself every morning. She could not be dissuaded from the task. For a few days Jake had tried to get up earlier and earlier and catch her before she'd started the pot, but he never managed it. No matter what, Kimmy beat him to it. He decided it was silly to try fighting a magical being with only an alarm clock on his side. He relented. Besides, Kimmy was figuring out how to make a very decent cup of coffee.

After so many years of getting up and starting coffee he still, every morning, went to do it before seeing the pot already on and remembering Kimmy now saw to that.

Jake turned to go out and fetch the morning paper… and saw it sitting in wait on the kitchen table. Kimmy, too, brought that in (as her dog form, of course). Kimmy's helping presence in the house made Jake look quite the bumbling idiot as he tried to move through long-ingrained habits, half awake, to find all of them already tended to.

Breakfast, at least, was something Kimmy hadn't taken over. Mainly because Jake didn't eat the same thing every morning, it depended on what he felt like when he woke, and the house elf hadn't quite figured out a way to divine that. So she had to leave Jake to feed himself.

Jake passed by the open doorway connecting the kitchen and living room several times before it registered that something was different. Jake was heading back to the fridge for orange juice, already having made himself toast with jam, when he saw movement in the corner of his eye. He stopped and looked. And did a double take.

Jake, forgetting the juice, closed the fridge and walked into the living room.

Harry was sleeping on the couch, a blanket sprawled over his body, the back of the couch, and trailing on to the floor. His previously-white-but-now-black owl, Hedwig, was perched on the arm of the couch near his head. She was looking down intently at her master, but when Jake came into the room her head swiveled up to pin bright amber eyes on him. Ronald Weasley's little owl, Pig or Hog or something, was on the armchair kitty-corner to the couch. The excitable bird was more subdued than normal, perhaps still recovering from his apparently long journey yesterday or maybe having some sense of the fact that someone was sleeping in the room.

On the back of the couch, his ginger tail swishing lazily like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, Hermione's cat Crookshanks was dozing but every once in a while cracked open an eye to check on Harry.

The movement that had caught Jake's attention, however, was the little figure tucked in the corner of the room, sitting like a yogi master in the middle of deep meditation. Except this yogi was a two foot tall magical elf wearing hot pink boxers. Kimmy was keeping vigil but every so often she turned to look toward the window… that was the motion that had caught Jake's eye. She looked more fretful, more serious, than Jake had ever seen her. Except for maybe the day Harry and Hermione had come back from the park after some kind of near incident with Harry's magic getting out of control. She looked as though she expected something to happen.

Kimmy looked back at Harry then toward Jake. She gave a wan smile and held up her finger to her lips.

Jake, not ready to deal with what was going on in his living room, turned around and went back to the kitchen to carry on with breakfast.

He didn't get any manner of explanation for the odd conglomeration in his living room until his wife came in later. He was seated at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper when Miranda came in and poured herself a cup of coffee. She slid into the chair across from her husband and Jake asked, "Did you see the living room?"

Miranda nodded and stole the front page.

"What's going on?"

Miranda yawned. "Harry had a bad dream last night and had a bit of an accident in his bed."

Jake sputtered. "He wet the bed? Isn't he a bit old for that?"

Miranda smirked, but it looked more like a grimace than any reflection of amusement. "He didn't have that kind of accident, he threw up."

"Oh, well… must have been some dream."

Miranda frowned. "I woke up in the middle of the night and found him trying to clean up. I put him to bed on the couch."

"So… what's with the menagerie?"

"I guess they just wanted to make sure nothing else disturbed him."

Jake grunted. "Not much chance of that with the critter guard he's got in there." Jake shook his head. "He's a strange boy."

Miranda bit her lip, the same way Hermione did when troubled.

"What's wrong?" Jake asked, leaning closer, suddenly concerned.

She looked up at her husband and sadness and bitterness swam in her brown eyes. "Jake… when I came upon Harry last night, well, he was still kind of foggy, not really lucid… I moved to touch him and he… he acted like I was going to hit him for messing his bed. When he was a bit more clear-headed he said he'd thought he was back with his aunt and uncle."

Jake studied his wife's worried expression pensively. He knew Miranda had become quite taken with Harry. She genuinely liked the boy, and really Jake couldn't blame her. For the most part he was a really decent chap. Polite, congenial, had a good head for sports and did a splendid job of describing Quidditch in a way that made it come alive, and he seemed to really make an effort to please Miranda and follow any house rules he could ascertain. The last of which was a feat of sorts in itself, because the Grangers didn't have set rules, instead things that were done and things that weren't, had always been that way, things that were understood by all in the family. Harry was a quiet houseguest, clean, accommodating, a bit reserved but a quick thinker, a real 'think on his feet' type. He was good at making Hermione laugh, bringing out of her a person Jake had always wished they could see in their studious, isolated child. So far he seemed to do damn near everything Hermione told him to do. Jake wondered if the kid would walk into oncoming traffic if only Hermione asked him to (and Jake honestly thought that Harry would). Really, the only complaint Jake had against the boy was the way he looked at his little girl sometimes. A bit too friendly, even for best friends, for Jake's liking.

That didn't mean he liked the idea of Harry being abused. It made him think of Harry a little differently, though, made him reconsider all the things he'd noticed about Harry Potter that had seemed a little off since the boy came into their home. "That might explain some things," he mused aloud.

Miranda closed her hands tightly around her cup. "It's just… he's such a _sweet_ boy! How anyone could harm him…"

"Well, if I remember correctly, some evil wizard tried to kill him, didn't he?"

Miranda blanched and looked down at the unread section of paper in front of her. "I suppose… I suppose I just want to think of him as a normal teenage boy. And he's really not."

"Don't think our Hermione would take such a shine to him if he was."

Miranda smiled at that and stole Jake's half-eaten piece of jammed toast and ate in thoughtful silence.

It was just as quiet as any other morning before Miranda and Jake headed off to work, just as still and understated, but there was an air of tension that was unfamiliar, its source the sleeping boy in the Grangers' living room. Miranda and Jake took care when they walked by the living room. They dressed in the kind of quiet that shrouded a wake, the tread of the recently dead in the air, or at least its bedmate. Miranda went into Harry's bedroom to see about remaking the bed and putting on clean sheets to find it already done. Kimmy, no doubt. She returned to the kitchen where she had her husband milled around, ready to head out, and still they were mute in deference to the sleeping wounded in their house, though that victim might not bleed.

At the opportune moment, Miranda was in a position to see into the living room and the hallway both. She saw Hermione before Jake did. Crookshanks was still stationed steadfastly on the back of the couch, he'd never budged from his part of the mass vigil over Harry, and for that reason Miranda wasn't sure Hermione would wake in time to see them out the door. Crookshanks was usually her alarm clock, but to guard Harry he'd abandoned that job.

Hermione shuffled sleepily out of the dark hallway, bleary-eyed and yawning, her hair an exceptional mess. Miranda couldn't help but watch her daughter with acute interest. Somehow, seeing how Hermione would react was morbidly fascinating.

Hermione came into the junction of living room and kitchen, saw the gathering of creatures, and stopped. She stared a moment at Crookshanks, Hedwig, Pig, and Kimmy, then she looked closer and Miranda could see the moment that her little girl realized Harry was on the couch. Sleep left her stance and eyes completely. Miranda didn't know someone could go from groggy to hyper-alert so quickly. Hermione, suddenly a ball of potential energy and racing thoughts, looked from Harry to her mother. There was a flare there, a fire in Hermione's eyes, and Miranda half-expected in that second for Hermione to take over the watch already posted… or to take command of it.

Hermione glanced back toward Harry then turned and marched up to Miranda. In a firm, concerned whisper she asked, "What's happened to Harry?"

Miranda glanced toward her husband, wondering if he too was seeing the change in their daughter. Jake was watching, and from the look on his face he definitely noticed.

Miranda looked to her determinedly protective Hermione and toward the couch where Harry lay, unaware of the champions in arms about him. "He had a nightmare last night and woke up sick."

Hermione's eyes widened, she looked torn for a moment between letting him sleep and needing to check on him, and the latter won out. Without a word she turned and hurried into the living room.

Jake appeared silently at Miranda's side and touched her elbow. He leaned in to whisper, "He really sets something off in her, doesn't he?"

"Yes."

"I don't like it," Jake grumbled.

Miranda looked sympathetically at her husband. "Have a care, Jake, Harry may one day be your son-in-law."

Jake scowled. "Yeah, I know."

Miranda touched Jake's hand gently, in commiseration, then moved a few paces toward the living room. She couldn't help but watch.

Hermione had cautiously rounded the couch where Harry slept. Hedwig, Crookshanks, Pig, and Kimmy watched her impassively, making no move to stop her. Miranda was sure, if _she'd_ approached, there would have been some ruffled feathers… literally. Not for Hermione. She went to him like it was her right, and they conceded to her in like fashion.

Hermione pushed her hair back from her face and bent close to Harry. Worry etched into the lines of her face, making her ages older than her fourteen years. She studied him a moment in the light pouring softly from the living room windows. Harry was on his back, head turned to the side, one arm crossed over his chest. He was motionless but for the rhythm of his breathing. That simple movement Hermione marked like a band conductor leading a march, then she brought up her hand and lightly touched his shoulder.

Harry flinched and reached out to fend her off… and in the next split-second the hand that had been flung out to hold her at bay came to rest lightly on her arm, almost as though to hold her where she stood at his side. He stared up at her a moment, time froze as they looked into one another's eyes, then Hermione slid her hand up from his shoulder to his face and cupped his cheek lightly. "Harry? You all right?"

Harry took a few breaths then let her arm go. He gingerly sat up and Hermione sat down on the couch beside him. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Hermione leaned closer to him, Miranda could only see their backs, but it spoke volumes. Harry's stooped shoulders and drooping head, Hermione's strong, protective posture, the way she pressed gently against his shoulder to offer comfort. Miranda suspected she was seeing the Harry and Hermione of Hogwarts, maybe the first time she really saw her daughter and Harry Potter as they naturally were.

Harry looked up and around at all the magical watchdogs he had and questioned Hermione by way of a frown in her direction. Hermione gave a shrug and rubbed his back with one hand. Harry sagged into the contact and with a great sigh he seemed to fold to the horrors of the previous night.

Miranda gave them a moment then approached. "Harry?"

Harry and Hermione both looked up at her as she came into the living room. Hermione did not drop her hand from Harry's back but she stopped rubbing. Harry looked almost afraid of her, and Miranda was scared to think that she might know why. What she'd seen last night scared her too. Not the nightmare, but the hint of a boy who'd been faced with maternal behavior and didn't know what to do with it. He looked wary that the same unfathomable force would come to bear again.

Miranda fully intended it.

"Are you feeling better, honey?"

Harry tensed and his face screwed. Hermione cut a look at him and she withdrew her hand. Hermione knew. This thing Miranda only saw last night, Hermione already knew it. How many painful secrets about this boy did Hermione keep?

"Uh… yeah, much. Thank you."

Too damn formal, too polite, too distant.

"You look a sight better. Come here."

Harry darted a panicked look at her, questioning and flighty. Miranda offered her most unimposing smile and beckoned him to her. Harry stiffened, threw a glance at Hermione, then rose and moved warily to Miranda.

When he stood before her Miranda reached up and brushed his hair from his brow… then she leaned in and pressed her cheek to his forehead. Harry made as though to pull away then he just didn't. He simply gave it. He stopped fighting and let her care about him. It felt like a wall crumbling in the quiet of the early morning.

Miranda drew away in a small manner of triumph. "You feel fine; I still want you to take it easy today, all right?"

Harry nodded wordlessly.

Harry and Hermione both saw Jake and Miranda to the door. When Miranda turned to bid Hermione goodbye she kissed her daughter on the forehead… then did the same to Harry. Harry looked up at her with eyes that seemed to both cry gratitude and swim with fear of the unknown. But he cracked a very tiny, very uncertain half-smile when she told Hermione to watch after Harry. Hermione smiled too, but it was somehow more of a lioness baring her teeth to dare anyone to cross her than an amused smile.

As they were getting into the car to drive to the office, Jake and Miranda both glanced up to see the pair of teenagers standing in the doorway watching them head off. A bat-eared Chihuahua pushed through to stand between their legs and bark a farewell. Miranda was certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, it was meant to say 'I've got it from here'.

* * *

Hermione turned to Harry the millisecond that the front door closed. Harry had expected no less.

"Was it truly a nightmare?" Hermione asked pointedly. Kimmy transformed back to her house elf shape and scuttled, butt-naked, over to the spot on the floor where her pink boxers had fallen when her body shifted to canine form. One ear turned to the conversation taking place, she shimmied into her shorts and slipped the home-made shoulder straps over her arms.

"Yeah, it was… but not _just_ that," Harry confessed. This was Hermione. There was no point in lying or evading, she'd ferret out the truth, it was Hermione's nature. And if anyone could hear these kind of 'Potter stories' and still see Harry past them, it was Hermione Granger. "It was Voldemort, he was torturing someone, an Auror, and then he killed him." Harry rubbed at his scar, the recount reigniting the memory of the burning that had erupted on his forehead, "I woke up feeling awful, my scar hurt."

Hermione chewed on her lip thoughtfully, eyes intent on Harry but part of her brain working furiously a thousand miles away. "This can't be good."

"Well, no, I'd kind of sussed that part out," Harry muttered sarcastically. He was still edgy, still felt the sour magic of the _Avada Kedavra_ in his mind.

Hermione frowned at him then seemed to understand he was under a fair amount of stress and let his snide remark be. "What should we do?" she mused aloud, not actually asking anyone.

Kimmy, however, answered. "Kimmy has spoken with Master Albus about Mister Harry Potter's bad dream; he's expecting us."

Harry and Hermione looked down quickly at Kimmy. Hermione regained her faculties first. "The headmaster wants to see us?"

Kimmy nodded.

"Where?"

"At Hogwarts, of course," Kimmy said.

"Hogwarts? How are we to get there?" Harry asked. Outside of the Hogwarts Express, he knew of only two ways to get to the school in anything approaching a timely fashion, neither of which were options available to them at the Granger residence. "Hermione and I aren't able to apparate…"

"No, no, by floo. Master Albus has a protected fire, much safer than portkey or apparition at these uncertain times."

Hermione crinkled her nose. "But _we_ haven't a fireplace, much less one connected to the floo network, private or otherwise…"

"But _Kimmy_ does," the house elf pressed.

Before Harry or Hermione could mount any inquiries Kimmy was shooing them toward the bedrooms. "Dress now! Master Albus will be waiting for us; it won't do to meet him in knickers and dressing gowns!"

Harry and Hermione cast one another a silent shrug and disappeared into their respective rooms to change.

When they emerged, dressed and ready to go, Harry and Hermione stood around the hallway, at a loss for where they were expected to go. Kimmy was nowhere to be found when they converged in the hall. Hedwig maneuvered her way through the house with what seemed, once confined, the movement of massive black wings. She brushed past Hermione and alighted on Harry's shoulder, her wings spread to halt her momentum and for a moment shrouding Harry about the head and shoulders with her span of ebony feathers. She balanced, tucked her wings, and nibbled at Harry's ear. Harry brought up a hand and stroked her chest. "I don't know, Hedwig."

The hall closet opened and Kimmy stepped out, caught sight of them, and gestured them forward. "Come, come, Master Albus waits."

Harry and Hermione went to the closet and peered inside at the coats and umbrellas. It looked like a normal muggle closet. There was no indication of any way they might be whisked off to their beloved magical school amid the coats.

"Down, down, you won't ever get to Kimmy's house up there!" Kimmy said at their knees, turned to the left, pushed past two jackets, and ran right toward the wall… only there was never the sound of her hitting it.

Kimmy was gone.

Hermione got down on her hands and knees first and looked in the direction Kimmy had vanished. "Oh!" she muttered and crawled toward the wall. She, too, vanished.

Harry waved off Hedwig and got down on his hands and knees as well. Once he was at half his height level what had been a solid wall behind the coats and jackets before shimmered and shifted and suddenly he saw a perfectly Kimmy-sized doorway, a squat, square entrance with little globes of light on either side, like fireless candles. Harry crawled into the entrance and blinked in astonishment when he came through the other side.

It was a common room. Or at least it looked like one. It was circular like the tower rooms at Hogwarts castle, maybe three-quarters the size of the Gryffindor common room, the walls brown stone and holding shadows tenaciously. At least, what could be seen of the walls were stone. Everywhere, where one might normally display the heads of hunted prey or boast great artwork, Kimmy had hung boxer shorts. Harry could only assume they were her favorites. A pair of boxers that seemed to be a patch of the actual night sky with the belt of the milky way and twinkling stars, even purple-grey clouds that drifted lazily over the radiant half-moon. Another pair blue as a clear summer day sky. Harry's eyes flew to that pair when there was a glint and flash of gold. A snitch was darting around the shorts, looking almost as real as an actual snitch, and his trained eyes had locked on the momentarily flicker of gold. There was a pair with an obvious place for a tail to go. A truly tatty, off-white, stained pair that looked like they could have been Dudley's. Another pair that seemed to be struggling to pry itself from the wall and go for a walk-about. Harry sidled away from that pair. There was a set of green boxers that looked small enough to fit Kimmy as normal boxers ought to rather than the way she wore them in overall-fashion. There were several other proudly mounted boxer shorts, but they were mostly lost in shadow. Kimmy's home was dimly lit, sparse orange light reaching into the room only where it saw fit, creating a very comfortable, sleepy effect when Harry entered. A fluffy patchwork couch was situated before a soft, blue terry-material rug. A hearth burned to one side, the firelight the only illumination in the entire room.

Kimmy was standing before her fire, looking the perfect fit for her half-size home in the Granger closet. Hermione was hunkered over next to Kimmy… the ceiling was too low for her to stand upright. "This is lovely, Kimmy," Hermione admired the room just as much as Harry. Harry came to his feet and stood nearly doubled over to not hit his head. It was almost easier to stay on his hands and knees.

"Tour later, now we must go sees Master Albus."

"Have you no floo powder?" Harry asked as he looked around Kimmy's fireplace. Normally there would be a pot for the magic soot. Kimmy's mantel had a half-dozen wizard pictures of Kimmy with two young men, from the looks of them brothers. It was inconceivable to think of them as their wizened headmaster and his brother.

"No need," Kimmy stated confidently, "Kimmy's fire is always open to Master Albus. Merely follow," she turned and marched straight into the fire… the moment she stepped into the flame it flared green and engulfed her then it was Harry and Hermione alone in Kimmy's home.

Hermione looked at Harry, shrugged, and walked hunched over toward the fire. She hesitated only briefly at the fire's edge, took a deep breath, then took an enormous step into the flames, a clear leap of faith, a 'here goes nothing'. The fire roared green again and Harry was alone.

Looking forward to the destination where he could stand up properly, he moved quickly to the fire and surged through…

… only to stumble on the other end, nearly tripping and ending up on his arse.

Hermione grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet before he could make a total fool of himself. He gave her a nod of thanks and brushed at his clothes. He looked up and found they were standing in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Kimmy was sitting in one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's grand, cluttered desk, swinging her feet in the air and regarding the portraits on the walls idly. Dumbledore himself was standing near the fire and offered Harry a smile when he recollected his senses. "Harry, Miss Granger, I hadn't expected to see either of you quite so soon. I only wish it were under better circumstances. Do come in. Lemon squares?" Dumbledore waved at his desk and a plate of lemon treats appeared. Kimmy hopped off the chair, trotted to the table, and fetched herself one.

"Erm… no thank you, Headmaster," Hermione said.

Dumbledore glanced at Harry, looked down impassively a moment at Harry's arm, and it was only then Harry realized Hermione was still holding on to him. He gently shrugged her off with an embarrassed cough. "Hello, sir."

"Please, sit down. If Kimmy has told me correctly, which I am sure she has, and smashing shorts, by the way, Kimmy, then we have quite a bit to discuss."

Harry and Hermione sat down in the two chairs facing the headmaster's desk. Kimmy, with an impressively nimble jump, leapt on to Dumbledore's desk and sat down cross-legged and munched on her lemon square. Dumbledore sat down in his seat and looked across at the two students keenly.

Hermione turned her head to glance in Harry's direction and when he caught her eyes she gave him an encouraging smile.

"Well… it was about Voldemort," Harry began awkwardly. Strangely, it had been easier to tell Sirius this when it had happened before, during term.

"And was it truly a dream?" Dumbledore's tone was knowing.

Harry tensed then sighed. He flitted a look in Hermione's direction, very aware that their headmaster and she had both begun with the same first question. "No, sir. More than that."

Dumbledore simply nodded and gestured for Harry to continue.

"Voldemort was there, he was surrounded by Dementors… he was torturing an Auror. He kept asking him 'where is the boy', but the Auror wouldn't tell him. Voldemort used the cruciatus curse on him, then he killed him, then I woke up."

Dumbledore ran his fingers through his beard in an effort to scratch his chin. "And what do you think, Harry?"

Harry sagged in his seat, suddenly feeling the tormented, broken night's sleep catching up with him in spades. "I think it's no stretch to figure the 'boy' he seeks is me."

"Sadly, as well as a foregone conclusion." Dumbledore replied. He looked closely at Harry. "This Auror you saw in your dream… did he simply refuse to tell Voldemort your whereabouts, or did he genuinely seem not to know?"

Harry shivered at the memory, the Auror's broken hands and pooling blood. "I truly think he didn't know. What Voldemort did to him… well, I don't rightly expect even an Auror to hold out against that. If he'd known, I'm sure he would have told."

"Do you think You Know Who will be able to track Harry down, Headmaster?" Hermione asked in a small voice. The fear in her question was palpable. She was justifiably scared that the dark wizard himself would show up at her parents' doorstep.

Harry felt a sharp pang of guilt.

"That is precisely what I have been attempting to ascertain," Dumbledore answered. "That Harry believes the Auror in his vision was unaware of Harry's location gives me some small measure of reassurance. As I have said, it is a regrettable fact in our present times that the ministry's security cannot be wholly trusted. With Voldemort's return, intelligence would be of primary importance. I am not sure if you have any inkling of the atmosphere blissfully muggled away as you have been this summer, but the popular stance has become one of watch and wait. No one is brash enough to show their hand, to let on how much they know or what they know. If they know anything at all."

"Is that why there's not been a word about You Know Who coming back in the _Daily Prophet_?"

"Precisely so.

"Knowing that your safety, as well as Harry's and your parents', were all put at stake when this arrangement was made, I took several additional precautions before you three left for the summer." Dumbledore leaned back in his seat and dropped his arms to the armrests of his grand chair. "The first relates to the question I asked you about your dream, Harry, about whether or not the Auror seemed to know where to find you. It is a regrettable fact of your inescapable celebrity in the wizarding world that your home with the Dursleys is rather well known if a wizard or witch only cared to look. It would be disturbingly easy for someone to find record of Four Privet Drive within the ministry.

"The same cannot be said, however, for the Grangers. Hogwarts maintains their own records of their enrolled students. That information is not released to the ministry, for the Ministry of Magic has no administrative power over Hogwarts. Miss Granger's home address is guarded here within the castle walls, as is true for every other student at Hogwarts. For Miss Granger and other muggle-born students especially that information is protected, for often a muggle-born witch or wizard's Hogwarts file is the first of any sort of official documentation in the wizarding world. I have remained here over the summer holiday for the express purpose of making sure that information does not fall into enemy hands.

"My second, and third, safeguard was Kimmy here." Dumbledore gave the house elf a smile when Kimmy stopped nibbling on lemon squares and smiled fondly at the headmaster. "I sent her with you as a protector, a guardian for Harry, this you know. What I did not mention was that I made her my secret keeper. To discover your whereabouts this summer, Harry, Kimmy would have to tell them. I think you can agree the likelihood of that happening is small."

Dumbledore stood and moved around his desk to look down at the two students. "Under normal circumstances, these measures I feel would be more than enough to most assuredly protect Harry and you, Hermione, from danger this summer. However, this is no ordinary threat we are talking about, this is Voldemort. We must not take any hint of danger lightly."

Hermione shook her head in absolute agreement.

Harry, however, was sullen. All he heard in the entire time Dumbledore was talking was that he was putting the Grangers in danger. And he'd known going in that he would, but now it was that much more real. "Sir… perhaps I shouldn't stay with Hermione and her parents any longer."

"What?!" Hermione yelped indignantly, but Dumbledore was unmoved. He looked as though he'd expected it. Knowing the headmaster, he may have.

Harry looked up. "I don't want to endanger Hermione and her family. I have already. If Voldemort's torturing Aurors to get to me… probably best I leave."

"And where would you go, Harry?" Hermione demanded. "Dumbledore just got finished telling you what an easy thing it would be for a Death Eater to break into ministry records and find the Dursleys. It'd be a _little_ harder to find you at the Weasleys, but not much. You're safer with us!"

"But you're not!" Harry retorted hotly.

Kimmy moaned lightly from behind Dumbledore's shoulder while the headmaster looked between the two. He finally turned discerning eyes on Harry. "As always, Miss Granger makes some valid points."

"But, Headmaster…" Harry began and happened to glance at Hermione. The betrayed, wounded look on her face broke his mental stride. He'd been riding on ire, on righteous chivalry, but it was harder to stay the course when Hermione looked at him like that. He frowned and looked back to Dumbledore. "I don't want anything to happen to the Grangers because of me."

"I'm sure you don't." Dumbledore looked to Hermione and cant his head at the look on her face. "Miss Granger? I do believe you're about to dazzle us."

Hermione blinked. "Well, no… I don't know about _that_. I just… I was thinking."

"Do tell us what you've come up with," Dumbledore perched on the edge of his desk and waited.

"Well… would be pretty hard as it is to find Harry at my mum and dad's, right?"

"I've done all I can think of to make that true," Dumbledore answered.

"I was thinking… what if we went away for a while? Somewhere never put into Hogwarts records."

"I won't have you and your family running because of me," Harry snapped.

"Not running," Hermione replied shortly, "going to visit my grandmum."

Harry gaped at her a moment. "_That's_ your great idea? Going to your grandmother's?" Harry asked incredulously.

Hermione's expression managed an amazing combination of a pout and a scowl. It wasn't a pretty end-product aimed Harry's way. He couldn't decide if he should feel bad for hurting her feelings or take cover for insulting her intelligence.

"An excellent idea, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said.

Harry looked quickly to the headmaster, completely baffled, his face screwed as if to ask if madness was contagious.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Harry… Ronald Weasley is your closest friend outside of Miss Granger here, is he not?"

"Yeah."

"You would say you know a lot about him?"

"I suppose so."

"Do you know where _his_ grandmother lives?"

Harry sat back abruptly when it clicked. He didn't even know if Ron's grandparents were _alive_, let alone where any of them might live. "Well, uh… no, I don't."

"So you see the principle behind Miss Granger's plan."

Harry nodded.

Dumbledore turned to Hermione again while Kimmy came to stand next to the headmaster's shoulder. As he was sitting and she standing atop the desk, it made them eye level with one another. "I trust you will not find this visit to your grandmother's difficult to manage?"

"No sir," Hermione said with a shake of her head. "My parents and I usually spend Christmas with my grandmum, often it's the only time all year we get to see her, but since I stayed at Hogwarts this Christmas to help Harry through the tournament… she'd love to have us over."

"Us?" Harry questioned under his breath, resigned to this plan but still displeased.

Hermione turned to him. "She'll be perfectly fine with you staying over as well, Harry."

Dumbledore nodded. "It's settled, then. Miss Granger, I cannot say how long it would be prudent to stay with your grandmum, we do not even know for certain if Voldmort has learned where Harry has been all summer. For now, considering Harry's vision, I think immediacy is more important than duration."

Hermione nodded fervent agreement, frowned, chewed her lip. Harry was already straightening to hear the latest kink in the plan.

"A problem?" Dumbledore asked as Kimmy propped her right arm on Dumbledore's shoulder and yawned.

"It's just… I know it won't be any trouble Harry and me staying with my grandmum for a while, but my parents… thing is, typically they only get time off work during Christmas. Because that's when I'm home it's the vacation time they pick. I'm not certain they could just leave in the middle of summer.

"I'm worried about leaving them behind if there is some danger… danger more than there's been so far, anyway."

"I see. An understandable concern." Dumbledore waved Kimmy to take her weight off him and when she did he stood and rounded his desk. He plucked from a drawer an untitled, leather-bound book. He held it in one hand, took out his wand from the folds of his robe with the other, and waved it over the book as his lips moved silently. When he finished he returned to the front of the desk and handed it to Hermione. "A portkey to Hogwarts. It's spelled to transport the users, in this case your parents, straight to the Great Hall, should it come to that. Mind you, it is only to be used if it's an emergency, portkeys are closely monitored by the ministry, regardless of who uses them. Once this is used it would be detected, both the origin and the destination, and we've discussed the need to keep your home undocumented within the ministry." Dumbledore tapped a fingertip against his lips while Hermione placed the book in her lap. "I think a house elf to watch over your parents would be a wise move, as well. Not Kimmy, of course, she will need to accompany you and Harry to your grandmother's. Gorby, perhaps. A house elf in the service of Hogwarts. A bit of a shy one, I'm afraid, doesn't like being noticed, spends more than half his time invisible. A fitting feat to serve us in this case, I imagine. Yes, Gorby will do. I shall have him sent back with you. You won't mind Gorby staying in your room while you're away, will you, Kimmy?"

Kimmy frowned. "Oh, well, no, I guesses not. Only it would be naughty of Gorby to fuss with Kimmy's collection."

Dumbledore patted Kimmy on the bony shoulder. "I will let him know you would prefer he leave your boxer shorts alone."

Kimmy seemed only marginally appeased but not about to balk at her duty to safeguard Harry.

Dumbledore turned then with an air of finality about him. "I believe it's all sorted, then. I will keep several eyes on things from Hogwarts for anything irregular, and Kimmy knows to keep me informed of any new developments."

Harry, knowing a dismissal when he heard one, stood and started toward the fire to return to the Grangers'. Hermione stood but paused. When Harry realized she wasn't with him he turned to her, questioning her hesitancy with only an expression. Hermione looked up at the headmaster. "Sir… we don't expect my mum home for lunch for several hours yet; would it be all right if Harry and I walked the grounds?"

Dumbledore appeared curious at the request.

Hermione hugged the portkey to her chest, her body naturally cradling the book. "It was just so hectic and crowded here last term, seems there was barely any time to enjoy Hogwarts."

Harry glanced toward Dumbledore.

The headmaster looked intently at Hermione then a ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth and twinkled kindly in his eyes. "It was a busy year. Very well. Don't stray from the grounds; I know how adventure seems to tempt you two, but it is very important that you refrain from gallivanting."

"We won't, we promise." She turned to Harry to look at him, a pleased glow on her face, and Harry left the fire and went to her. Hermione smiled at Dumbledore and turned, her hair whirling about her shoulders in her eager haste as she started toward the office door. Harry glanced up at the old wizard and Dumbledore smiled at Harry and… winked. Harry, baffled, blinked and frowned. Dumbledore turned to Kimmy and left Harry standing there, confused.

"Come on, Harry," Hermione called.

Harry gave a mental shrug and turned to follow Hermione out into the castle hallways.


	20. Chapter 20

Hogwarts's open courtyards had never seemed so still. The silence was stark, the emptiness jarring. It seemed almost abandoned, a relic turned ancient in only a month. The most deserted Harry had ever seen the school before was during winter holiday when most of the student body had gone home for Christmas. But even then there were a handful of students who stayed behind with Harry. If ever it got this deathly quiet, this unmoving, it was certain to be shortly broken by the arrival of someone else. This was perfect solitude. It was almost as though Harry and the girl at his side were the last people left on the planet.

And yet, the emptiness of the open grounds was preferable to the vacant, echoing halls of the castle behind them. Without the press of students or the sweeping presence of the teachers, the vaulted ceilings and endless halls seemed almost tomb-like in their cavernous hollowness. It was a relief to be outside, though the outdoors was just as lonely.

Harry and Hermione strolled across the yard slowly, no particular destination in mind. Once they'd stepped out into the sunlight Hermione had, without a word, slipped her hand into his. Harry didn't object or resist, there was no one to see or care but them.

They were still walking hand in hand. In its own way, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Hermione was somewhere else; Harry could see it in her expression when he glanced toward her face. He wished he could be where she was, because it repeatedly brought a content, dreamy half-smile to her lips and clouded her eyes. He didn't ask her where she was going in her mind. He didn't want to rip her from it. Instead he enjoyed the way it softened her face so wonderfully, touched her features with an untroubled ease that seemed so rare and treasured in light of recent times.

Their meandering took them to the base of the beech tree at the shores of the Black Lake. They'd arrived there almost by silent agreement, and Hermione at last let go of his hand to sit on the ground. Harry sat down beside her and leaned back against the tree. Hermione scooted over to share the trunk with him. Harry inched over as much as he could, but the tree was not that broad and for them both to lean against it they had to settle for also leaning against each other. Hermione tucked into his side, curled with the book in her lap and her knees almost in Harry's lap, and he truly did not mind in the least.

Hermione sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. Harry went to another place himself where his only experience was the press of her at his side, her hair tickling his cheek and neck, her sigh very near his ear. He smiled faintly to himself.

They watched the sunlight glint off the ripples in the lake's surface in silence a few minutes. This they would not have during term.

"Are you terribly upset with me?" Hermione asked in a small voice.

Harry was thrown. He'd been so content, so fully at ease under the shade of the tree, that the question seemed utterly out of place. "For what?"

Hermione pulled away enough to take her head off his shoulder and Harry missed it. "This business of going to my grandmum's."

"Oh." Harry had honestly, for a minute, forgotten. Now that he was reminded once more he was back to being displeased about the whole affair. Harry looked critically at Hermione. "I'm not upset with you. I know you're only trying to help. I just don't like what I've dragged you into. And your parents. You don't deserve it."

"And you do?" she asked shortly, that fire of Hermione Granger catching tinder.

"No, but that still doesn't make it right that I should force you to be in danger, too. I owe you better."

"Will you just accept that as long as you're in the thick of it I will be too?"

Harry closed his eyes. He understood that only too well… well enough for it to make him ache. "I won't stop trying to protect you." He said it in the tone of a promise, a vow.

"Neither will I when it comes to you." Hermione was quiet a moment. Harry looked out over the lake, recalling the murky depths, the merpeople, the grindylows. It looked so much nicer from the surface.

"It scares me, you know."

Harry glanced at Hermione to see her worrying the edge of the book/portkey anxiously. "Voldemort?"

Hermione shook her head. "You. I'm scared one day you're just going to leave. Decide you're better off without me and go."

"I'll never be better off without you," Harry said, "but you may be better off without me."

"That's not true."

Harry shrugged and tipped his head back to rest against the tree. He suspected he and Hermione could go in circles on this all day and not accomplish anything. Definitely never reach a consensus. And he couldn't assuage her fears and tell her he'd never strike off on his own without telling her, without taking her. He could see where one day it might be the only way to keep her safe. If it came to that, he'd do it. He closed his eyes and let a handful of heavy seconds fall away.

"There's another reason I thought we should go to my gram's, besides what I told Dumbledore."

Harry cracked open his eyes and looked over at her curiously.

Hermione met his gaze steadily. "She lives in the country. Before my grandpa died he trained horses, was quite good at it, actually. They had this beautiful farm, with meadows and creeks… it would be a perfect place for us to work on our 'project'."

There wasn't an appropriate emotional response to that. Harry hardly felt the potential benefit to their animagus work came even close to outweighing the risk posed by Voldemort finding him. Since his nightmare, their animagus project had not even entered into his mind. But he knew Hermione would be thinking in four directions at once. That was just classic Hermione.

"Dumbledore seems to think it's a good idea," Harry finally conceded. "I trust him to know what he's doing."

It was the closest to an endorsement she would get out of Harry. From the nod and look in her eyes, she knew it, too. She leaned further into his side, to put more of her weight on the tree, but she didn't put her head back on his shoulder. Harry was mildly disappointed at that. "I can ask my mum to drive us up there on Saturday. It's just two days from now and I'm sure she'd like to see her mum for a while; I hope that's soon enough. I bet Gram would have us for at least two weeks. Honestly, she'd probably have us longer, but Mum and Dad will want us home before that long. Would be hard to come up with an excuse for staying longer, I think."

Harry looked quickly at Hermione. "Are you not planning on telling them the reason for all of this?"

"No." Hermione scowled out over the water. "No, I've thought on it, and I just don't think it would help any to tell them. Gorby will be there if anything goes wrong, to get Mum and Dad safe to Hogwarts, but should it not go wrong then there's no reason to worry them needlessly."

Harry didn't say it, but he would bet his Firebolt that another reason for her secrecy that she had not named was the fear that, if Miranda and Jake knew the full extent of the situation, they'd feel they had no choice but to separate Harry and Hermione. No choice but to send Harry away. Because Harry feared that, too, he wouldn't challenge Hermione's decision to deceive her parents. He'd take the coward's path in this and let Hermione call the shots under the convenient guise of 'they're her parents, she'd know how to handle them best'.

"Something you must know about my grandmother before we go… she doesn't know that I'm a witch."

Harry turned a flabbergasted expression on her. "She doesn't?"

Hermione shook her head. "When my parents discovered I was a witch, they made the decision not to tell anyone in the family. Truth be told, I think they sort of hoped it was a phase I'd grow out of. After that it was just easier to keep it quiet. My Gram's nice, but stuck in her ways. Magic and wizards are fairy tales to her."

"Huh," Harry muttered, finding the notion that anyone in Hermione's family could fail to notice how different she was, how special she was, beyond peculiar. The Dursleys had always pegged him as a 'freak'… but then, they'd known his parents were magical.

Hermione nestled down further against his side, more comfortably against the tree trunk, and Harry decided there was little to be gained in thinking about it further. It had been decided they'd be going, and that was that.

A cool breeze skirted over the surface of the lake and stirred the leaves overhead. They fell into companionable silence, two lone teenagers at the water's edge.

The peace was shattered when suddenly Hermione gasped. Harry looked quickly at her. Hermione, a stunned look on her face, turned to the tree at their backs and pried a section of bark off with her fingers. She stared down at the scrap of bark in wonder, amazement, then looked up at Harry and beamed.

Harry smiled back at her.

Hermione tucked the piece of tree into her pocket and somehow the accomplishment, first attained on Hogwarts school grounds, left the solemn atmosphere of earlier far behind.

With a sudden thought, Harry jumped up. Hermione looked up after him, querulous at his sudden motion.

"I want to go down to the Quidditch pitch before we leave."

Hermione smiled in understanding. The one thing he couldn't do at the Grangers that he would have at the Weasleys, the one joy he thought he had surrendered for the summer, he could do now. Flight.

Hermione stood and walked with Harry down to the pitch. She took up a lone spectator role in the stands while Harry fetched a Cleansweep from the Quidditch locker room. When Harry kicked off and took to the air he was free. Free from worry, from Voldemort, from his life. There was only the wind in his hair and Hermione's distant, heartfelt calls of encouragement in his ears.

* * *

Roberta Richardson had seen them coming down the road from the living room window. She was standing in her open front doorway when the car came to a stop in front of the house. She was already moving forward when the passenger-side door flung open and a young woman with wild brown hair leapt from the vehicle and ran across the yard with a huge grin on her face. "Gram!"

The two women, old and young, met in an embrace and Berti laughed merrily. "Hermione! Goodness, child, you've grown. Let me take a look at you." Berti pulled back and looked closely at her granddaughter. The teenager was radiant, so much less the child that Berti remembered, and flashing that beautiful smile of hers. Berti shook her head and chuckled. "I would never think just a year would make such a difference, but you're practically a grown woman!"

"It's so good to see you, Gram." Hermione buried herself in another hug from her grandmother. Where once her cheek had rested against Berti's stomach, now it burrowed in her bosom thanks to Hermione's added height. It was almost bittersweet to have a child's arms gone, replaced by a young adult's that wrapped around her.

"I missed you at Christmas; it wasn't the same without you telling us where to put all the decorations. Just imagine, garland and lights all out of place."

Hermione laughed. "Oh, I missed you too, Gram, but I… well, Harry had a special school project he was working on during term, and I stayed to help him."

Berti looked up at the young man with glasses and unruly black hair who approached at a more casual pace alongside Miranda. From the corner of her eye, Berti saw Hermione's ginger cat Crookshanks slip out of the open car door and trot off into the nearest pasture, no doubt to prowl for prey. She focused instead on the young man she'd yet to meet.

"So this must be Harry."

Hermione withdrew from her grandmother's arms and turned to face the boy, who had come to a stop a few paces from the reunited pair. A Chihuahua was faithfully at his side, watching the goings-on with notable interest.

"Gram, Harry, Harry, my grandmum Berti."

"Ma'am," Harry said politely, hesitantly, then plowed on, "I hope you don't mind me here. Hermione said…"

"Oh, nonsense and pish-posh. 'Course I don't mind you staying over. This house is far too empty with just me; I'll be glad for the company. Besides, Miranda made it seem Hermione would not have come without you." Berti glanced up at her daughter and smiled. Miranda chuckled. Harry blushed, looked down, and toed the ground with his shoe. Hermione grunted resolutely, "I wouldn't've."

"Ah, young love," Berti sighed theatrically.

"Gram!" This time Hermione blushed and it brought a tiny smirk to Harry's lips, though it didn't bring up his head.

Berti kissed Hermione on the cheek. "Oh, dear, don't be so tightly wound. I'm only teasing. I think. Come in, the lot of you. Miri, please, I insist you stay at least for tea before starting back. We can talk while these two get settled."

Miranda smiled. "I'm not about to turn down your tea, Mum, it sounds wonderful."

Hermione knew just where to go in her grandmother's house. As she and Harry carried in their single suitcase apiece, she was giving Harry the abridged family history of the Richardson side of the family with strange segues into a home tour. "I'll stay in my mum's old room, you'll be in Uncle Ben's room. His name's actually Benedick, but we all call him Ben. He has a wife and three kids, though I've never met the youngest of the three. He lives in the states, so we don't see him much. I haven't seen Uncle Ben since I was nine. Our rooms will be right next to each other, with a bathroom on the opposite side of the hall. The hot water facet's on backwards, always has been, so you'll have to turn the hot tap the other way 'round. Oh! I'll have to show you the cove! Well, it's not really a _cove_, but when I was little it was my favorite place to go on Tiggy, it's absolutely wonderful…" Harry followed after Hermione, compliant and quiet, and Hermione's voice trailed off as the pair disappeared into the bowels of the house.

Berti carried two mugs to the breakfast nook table and fetched a kettle of hot tea. As she poured a cup for herself and her daughter she said, "How is Jake?"

"He's well. He was going to bring the kids up with me, but at the last minute a boy came in who'd knocked out his front tooth. Closest we have to a dental emergency, you could say."

"That's too bad. Give him my regards when you get back home." Berti sat down opposite her daughter and took a slow drink of tea. Miranda, too, spared a moment to enjoy the lemon-flavored sweet tea.

"Hermione's grown so much since the last time I saw her. Seems only yesterday she was learning to crawl."

"And shortly thereafter learning to read," Miranda laughed then shook her head. "I'm constantly astounded by how much older she is." Her voice dropped a fraction. "Especially this year. Hard to believe she's not my little baby anymore."

"I thought the same thing about you and Ben all the time. Sometimes I still do." Berti wrapped her hands around her warm mug and smiled wistfully to herself. "I'm glad Hermione's come to stay for a bit. I missed her over Christmas holiday ever so much. I look forward to spending some time with her."

"Well, you better go on ahead and include Harry too, in that time you'll be spending."

"Really?" Berti said with a playful twinkle in her eye.

Miranda nodded and scooted her mug over the table top idly. "Those two have been absolutely inseparable."

"You don't say… is our Hermione in love?"

Miranda smiled slowly and maternally… and a little sadly. "I don't think she knows she is. You know Hermione, stubborn as a bull."

Berti chuckled. "She got _that_ from her grandfather. And does this bloke Harry deserve her?"

Miranda sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "Well, no one will ever be good enough for Hermione, you know that, but Harry's a great kid, well, a great young man I should say. I confess I'm a bit taken with him. Of course, not as taken as _Hermione_… if he's her choice, I'll not take exception. He'll do."

"High praise then. Well, then it's just as well he came along this visit; if this boy Harry means to join the family I best get to know him."

A groan escaped Miranda's lips. "Oh, Mum, please don't heckle them."

"Would I do that, dear?"

"Are you kidding? If I had a pound for every time you embarrassed me in front of Jake while we were dating I wouldn't need to work."

"A mere test of his sincerity, my sweet Miri. If a little kind-hearted teasing sends him running for the hills, well, doesn't bode well for the future of the relationship, does it?"

"I'd be cautious. If you manage to send Harry running Hermione's just as likely to run with him."

"Oh really?"

"Inseparable, Mother. You'll see.

"I know you wanted to have some quality time alone with Hermione, but I doubt you'll find any reason to begrudge Harry's company. He is a perfectly courteous, polite young man. A gentleman even at his age, if you can believe it. I'm not sure about boyfriend or even future husband, but as far as a _friend_… Hermione could not have done better than Harry."

"It starts there, doesn't it?"

Miranda seemed to deflate with weariness and resignation. "Be gentle, Mum, I'm just not ready to see Hermione as anyone's wife."

Berti smiled sagaciously. "Yes, I know how that is."

Miranda pushed back from the table. "Well, I best be off. What with the children gone Jake and I were going to go out to dinner, so I should start back now so I don't get home too late. Assuming he's finished with that poor boy who knocked out his incisor, of course. Oh, and you shouldn't have to worry about keeping Hermione and Harry occupied, they've been pretty well independent this whole summer, keeping themselves busy and out of the way, don't see any reason why that would be any different here. And if Harry tries to cook for you, fair warning, it's well near impossible to dissuade him from it."

"Cook?" Berti faltered at the seeming non sequitur.

Miranda nodded, shrugged, and smiled. "He can get pretty pugnacious about it. Trust me, I've tried to talk him out of it, but he just won't have it. Makes lunch for Hermione and me every day back home despite my urgings not to trouble himself. I'd suggest you just relent and enjoy it, because he's a wonderful cook. I think it makes him feel less of an imposition if he's able to return some manner of favor for his stay. Let me see, is there anything else?" Miranda thought to herself.

Berti laughed and stood to see her daughter to the door. "I think I can figure out anything that might pop up. I have done this before, you know. Best run along so you and Jake can have a nice, romantic dinner."

Miranda gave her mother a hug, kissed her on the cheek, then went to the front door. At the threshold she paused and looked toward the hallway, as if debated whether or not she should tell Hermione and Harry goodbye, then turned and left the kids in her mother's care.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: After reading the reviews left by so many of you expressing your concern over the Harry/Hermione ship, I feel like I should throw you a bone. I don't really think it's a spoiler, because I categorized "Vox Corporis" under the H/Hr pairing. They do hook up. It will happen, never fear, just all in due time.

Just to let any interested readers know, there is a slightly different version of "Vox Corporis" being posted at Portkey. It's not immensely different from the version; I'd say 98.5 of the chapters are exactly the same. In fact, the only chapters so far that have any discrepancies between the two sites are Chapters 2 and 21. Just a little FYI.

* * *

Early morning greeted the Richardson farm house with hints of gilded purple and gray. Dew hung heavy in the air and clung in crystal droplets to the grass. Hermione Granger stepped out the front door and took in a deep breath. A smile touched her lips. Behind her, his feet dragging and his mouth gaping in a yawn, followed Harry. He rubbed at his eye underneath his glasses then ruffled a hand through his hair. Kimmy, in dog form, trotted out after them and took off, no doubt to survey the property and stake out any possible danger.

Harry came to a stop beside Hermione and grumbled, "Why'd we have to get up so early for this, again?"

Hermione turned to look at him and frowned. Not in disapproval, but disappointment. "For this," she pointed toward the meadowland that surrounded the house. Empty pastures with unnecessary fences marked where once the land had been home to several horses. Now they were empty plots of pasture with knee-high, sweet-smelling green grass. In one direction was the road, sparsely traveled at this hour, and in the other the pastureland rolled out into a tree-line, the edges of a miniature forest. The early morning fog blanketed the ground, cast a mist that left the trees not so far away in shades of gray and added hazy miles so that they seemed impossibly far away.

Harry didn't see what was so impressive about it, kind of pretty but not early-rising-worthy pretty, but when he glanced over at Hermione he accepted the only truth that mattered… it was impressive to Hermione. She was gazing out at the mist-laden grounds with a faint smile on her face. When she realized Harry was watching her she blushed. "When my mum and dad told me I was a witch, before I'd started at Hogwarts, I read about magic. I wanted to learn about myself, the part of me my parents couldn't teach me. In muggle literature, magic's almost entirely confined to Merlin and the age of courts and knights. I…" Hermione blushed even more fiercely, "I sort of romanticized it, I suppose. Before I knew what magic and wizards today are like, I used to imagine living in Merlin's era, and when I came to Gram's I'd get up really early and take Tiggy and head toward the woods, and I pretended I was heading through the mist to Avalon." Hermione turned her head aside to hide her embarrassment. "It's stupid, I know."

"No," Harry said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle even to his own ears. She looked warily at him, her face down-turned and eyes lifted to watch him. Harry felt sleep vanish and leave in its wake that damnable stomach flutter. He swallowed. "It's not stupid." Harry glanced up again at the foggy earth and realized that it was pretty. And behind those trees… well, from here it seemed there was no limit to the secrets they might hold. Maybe Merlin would be there. He glanced back at Hermione and smiled. "Thank you for showing me."

Hermione smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Come on, we'll get Tiggy and I'll show you the cove."

Harry eagerly followed Hermione.

She led them to a small barn with a fenced pen. At their approach a horse stuck its head out from around the building and pricked its ears forward curiously.

"Tig, Tig, Tiggy," Hermione called and started to climb the fence.

The horse snorted then came out from behind the barn and walked toward the girl. Harry came to a stop at the fence and hung back, content to watch. The chestnut horse's only marking was a stripe down its face. Harry had far more experience with hippogriffs, and for a moment a horse's head on an equine body seemed abnormal.

Hermione and the horse reached one another and Hermione patted the animal's head and kissed it on the nose. She turned as she tangled her fingers in the animal's mane. "This is Antigone. She was my grandfather's calm, Gram always said. Tiggy was the most laid back, sweetest horse Gramp ever had. He used her a lot to keep higher strung horses calm. She had a sedating influence."

Tiggy snorted and her head drooped lazily. Hermione patted her neck. "When she was young, Tiggy used to be a competitive jumper. Never had the competitive spirit for it, sad to say she never won a single competition, but she won my gramp. Mum told me once she saw a lot of horses go through Agincourt but Tiggy was always here."

"Agincourt?"

Hermione smirked. "Oh… back when Gramp was training horses full time that's what the farm was called." Hermione shrugged. "Gramp loved Shakespeare."

"So that's where it comes from," Harry said with a smile.

Hermione nodded and wrapped her arms around Tiggy's neck to give her a hug. The mare stood quietly, half-asleep.

"Come on in and say hi," Hermione bade Harry as she stepped toward the barn, "I'll fetch the bridle and we can head out."

Harry climbed over the fence and approached the horse. Tiggy flicked one ear forward to listen but otherwise did not stir. Harry came to a stop a few paces away from Tiggy and almost bowed. 'Not a hippogriff' he reminded himself and instead put his hands in his pockets and considered the dozing animal. "Um… hi, Antigone."

The mare took her weight off one of her back legs and crooked it, her entire hindquarters skewing as she closed her eyes.

Hermione came back with a bridle looped over her shoulder. Tiggy heard the jingle of the bit and her head came up, her ears shot forward, and her eyes opened alertly. She stood flat on all four legs and turned her head toward Hermione.

"That's a good girl, Tiggy," Hermione said as she slipped the bit between the horse's teeth and slid the leather over her ears. She fastened the throat latch strap and stepped toward the mare's withers and pulled a brush from her back pocket and began to brush the place where the rider would sit. Tiggy mouthed the bit and shifted on her feet.

"Stand still, Tiggy, Harry, could you hold her?"

Harry stepped closer and gathered up the dangling reins. Tiggy seemed to pay attention to him for the first time and nipped at his fingers. Hermione brushed both sides of Tiggy's barrel and back then pushed her hair back from her face. "There, that should do. I'll give her a proper rub-down once we get back."

"Who will I ride?" Harry asked and looked around the pen for another horse.

"We'll have to double up on Tiggy. When Gramp died Gram sold all the horses at the Court. She would have sold Tiggy, too, Gram was never one much for horses, but she said Gramp would roll over in his grave if he knew Tiggy was sold off. She's the only one left. It'll be okay, though, Tiggy's well-behaved; she won't fret at having us both on her. But here, best take her to the fence so we can mount more easily." Harry relinquished the reins and stepped out of the way while Hermione led the mare over to the fence.

When Harry caught up with Hermione at the fence she was standing very still, eyes glossy and her fingers tangled in the mare's mane. "Hermione?"

Hermione blinked, looked at Harry, at Antigone, then said, "Hold on just a moment," then scrambled over the fence and ran toward the house. Harry, baffled, stood dumbly beside the horse while Tiggy eyed him, as though sizing him up and trying to decide how much he'd weigh when he got on her.

Hermione came hurrying back from the house with a pair of scissors in her hand. She climbed back over the fence, came around to Tiggy's side, and cut off a small lock of the mare's golden brown mane. Hermione stuck the scissors through her side belt loop and studied the section of coarse horse hair between her fingers. She dug into her pocket and withdrew her crumble marble bag. Without a word she stuffed the horse hair inside and stuffed the bag back into the depths of her pocket.

Harry didn't have to ask. It seemed the token process of becoming an animagus was most difficult on that first token. Once they knew what it felt like, and how they were to get there, it became much easier. They were learning to trust their feelings when a token presented itself. They were becoming more skilled at reaching the necessary meditative state to open themselves to noticing tokens around them. And because they were both aware of the nature of tokens, and the importance of abandoning human initiative and pride when hunting them, it was not strange for one or the other of them to drop what they were doing to go after a leaf or stick or pebble. They were wise enough not to attempt a token of their own just because the other did.

Hermione threw the reins over Tiggy's neck and wedged herself between the mare and fence. With a quick climb she was able to throw one leg over the horse's back and position herself behind Tiggy's withers. She gathered up the reins and stilled Tiggy. "Come on, Harry."

Harry relented and uncertainly squeezed himself between the fence and the horse. As Hermione had done, he climbed half-way up the fence then turned to consider the horse's bare back, Hermione's legs draped on either side, Hermione herself half-turned to await him. He extended one leg over the far side of the horse's broad back then fell into place behind Hermione.

"Comfortable?" she asked cheerfully.

"Sure."

Hermione clucked her tongue and urged Tiggy forward with a gentle hug of her calves. The mare snorted and started forward. At the pen gate Hermione unlatched and opened it from horseback then maneuvered Tiggy through.

"This was always my favorite part of visiting Gram and Gramp's," Hermione said aloud, clearly enjoying herself.

"Uh huh," Harry muttered as his body swayed with the motion of the horse. "So, if you knew how to ride before, why didn't you like Buckbeak? I just assumed you were frightened being on him."

Hermione snorted. "Because of the _flying_. And he wasn't a horse, so it's different. _And_ he was pretty much feral, I don't care what Hagrid says, no telling what he'd do. I _trust_ Tiggy."

It was Hermione-logic and Harry knew better than to argue with it. "Oh. Well, then, on to Avalon."

Hermione laughed, a light, care-free, wonderful laugh, and Harry's heart lodged in his throat. Hermione pointed them in the direction of the trees and set Tiggy to an unrushed walk.

There was an occasional flash of tan in the green grass as Kimmy darted about, close enough to rush in if danger presented. She didn't stay steady at their side, fading into the fog and slipping into the grass taller than she, but it seemed there was no threat from Death Eaters here. Tiggy plodded through the grass toward the trees that had seemed an adventure away. Occasionally she turned her head to the side to nip at long bits of grass within reach for a quick snack. The sun was still making a weak showing, barely laying a film of light over the layers of fog that hovered in their path.

Hermione barely seemed to guide the mare; it was as though Tiggy knew this trek as well as Hermione did. She sat astride her childhood mount and seemed completely at ease.

They were coming up on the woods that had teased from afar. Then they passed the tree line. They were weaving between trees, meandering through the early-morning forest.

"We're nearly there," Hermione promised. "The cove's just up ahead.' She urged Tiggy onward.

Harry, still sleepy from their early start, stared at Hermione's bushy hair and didn't even notice where they were until Hermione had the horse at a stop and turned her profile to him. "This is it."

"What?"

"The cove."

Harry looked around. It was a pond. Not even that, barely bigger than the prefect's bath. It was ringed by trees and patches of grass. It might have been lovely but Harry was stuck in the twilight zone.

Hermione crossed one of her legs over Tiggy's neck and dropped down to the ground. Harry glanced down at her but Hermione seemed not to notice as she gazed about at her childhood retreat. "I remember it being bigger than this."

Harry dismounted and dropped to the ground beside her. Finally Hermione looked at him. "Of course, I used to bring books here and read for hours. Sometimes I read about Merlin and Camelot, but really it was just anything. I liked being alone out here with just Tiggy for company. I could be anything here.

"I've never shown this to anyone, not even Gram or Mum. They must know it's here, but I like to pretend I'm the only one who knows about it. My own Avalon."

Hermione stepped away from Harry and he watched after her as she tied Tiggy to a low-hanging branch enough that she could reach the grass to graze. Hermione turned, lifted her chin to the morning air, and closed her eyes. And she smiled that enchanted, wondrous smile from earlier that morning.

Harry's gut clenched.

Hermione moved to the water's edge and toed at a stone.

Harry walked over to the base of a tree, a carpet of soft fresh grass beneath it, and sat down. He laid down flat on his back, removed his glasses with one hand, and threw his other arm over his eyes to enjoy the quiet of the cove.

He could hear Tiggy tearing grass with her teeth and the softer sounds of Hermione moving around… then he startled when he heard her drop down beside him. Harry moved his arm just enough to look at Hermione over the crook of his elbow. She was sitting close beside him.

Harry took his arm away from his face, let it rest on the ground over his head, and fixed his unfocused eyes on the canopy. "Hermione…"

She turned her head to look at him, expression so peaceful and content it was quickly the best part of Avalon as far as Harry was concerned.

"This is really great. Thank you for bringing me here, Mione."

Hermione's expression softened and she looked back at him with a beguiled smile.

"What?" he asked, confused by the shift.

The corners of Hermione's mouth curved up further in a small, private smile. It made Harry's hair stand on end. "You just called me 'Mione'."

"Oh…"

"I like it," Hermione said shyly.

Harry smiled, despite himself. "I'll remember that."

Hermione shifted closer to him and Harry held his breath. But the world didn't explode and Tiggy kept on chomping away busily at the grass a short distance away. Dawn slowly seeped into the cove, Hermione's Avalon, and Harry began to appreciate why Hermione would love this spot so much. It was a world away from both worlds they'd tried to fit into. He could stop trying to be anything here, the Boy Who Lived or the freak of Privet Drive. He was the place between the tree and between the water, the being atop the grass, and under the leaves, the creature that lounged with another at his side… another with lustrous, wild brown hair that fluttered in the breeze, that danced around her face, ticked his skin, teased his senses, called to his fingers. Called to him.

Harry turned to Hermione, her hair loose and free, and blinked.

Hermione looked at him. "What?"

Harry considered her a moment, then leaned in. Hermione gasped and held still as he moved toward her. Harry reached across her, slipped the scissors from her belt loop, and sat back. Hermione looked down at them in confusion then up into his eyes.

Harry brought up his free hand and caught a segment of her eternally untamed hair. He glanced at her hesitantly. "May I?"

Hermione's eyes widened when she understood. She nodded.

Harry cut off a lock of hair and came away with his token. He studied the brown-gold collection of hairs, rolled them between his fingers in wonder at the softness, the Hermioneness in their magic, the magic imprint singing true of his best friend, then he fished his own marble bag from his pocket. He added his newest prize and looked again at Hermione. She seemed astounded, strangely honored, to have been chosen. She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair as though to find where he'd taken from her.

Harry handed her back the scissors and she wordlessly accepted them. Then the moment was gone and it was almost as though it had not happened.

"We should come back, if you truly like it here," Hermione said lowly.

"I'd like that."

Hermione smiled at him again, that wondrous smile, half shy, half bold, and Harry figured if Avalon made Hermione glow like that it was worth the early morning wake-up calls.

* * *

By the end of their two week stay at Roberta Richardson's home, Harry had a short-list of things he was not going to miss. And as much as he liked Hermione's grandmother, she was number one on it. From all the questions she asked him, questions that _had no answer_, she had to think he was a mumbling idiot physically incapable of normal speech. She was kind enough, had a real zinger of a sense of humor, but _gods_ was the woman good at asking horribly uncomfortable odd-ball questions. Why would she ask _him_ what he thought was the proper amount of time to date a girl before kissing her? She was the wise, experienced older lady, shouldn't _she_ have her own answer to that? Why ask an almost fifteen-year-old boy who'd never dated in his life? And what did he think was Hermione's most difficult to tolerate pet peeve? Like he was going to tell her _that_ with Hermione sitting right there! Did that mean he thought she was perfect? Well, no, who's perfect? There were a few trigger words: 'wedding', 'marriage', 'baby', and 'fiancé' that sent Harry running. Sometimes just out the room, sometimes out of the house entirely. And he tried to tell himself she was a lonely widow who merely missed her dead husband, that she'd dwell on such things remembering her dear lost spouse, but _still_! He was not going to miss that.

But he would miss Avalon. Every morning he and Hermione would get up early when the sun was still on the cusp of the horizon, climb up on Antigone, and set off for the misty woods.

It was their last morning in the cove. Miranda was coming to pick them up around noon, so they couldn't stay long.

Tiggy was tied across the water, grazing as always. Kimmy was nowhere to be seen, but at Berti's she'd made a unique habit of being there without being seen. Hermione was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him, the heavy black spells book open in her lap. Harry hadn't even known she'd brought it until he saw her with it that morning… she'd kept it that well hidden lest Berti find it. She was reading quietly and Harry was reclined back against a tree trunk.

Yes… Harry would miss this.

Hermione looked up from her book, turned to him, "Harry… you've tokened well over ten, right?"

Harry thought a moment. "Thirteen so far, why?"

Hermione pivoted on the grass to more directly face him. "Soon as we get back to Hogwarts I think we can start the next phase of the animagus transformation."

"Which is what?"

"A potion to bind the token magic to the witch or wizard. I discussed it with Kimmy last night, and it seems well the easiest part of the process. According to Kimmy, the individual magic of each object is only sporadically connected to the greater magical energy in nature… the way the tokens jump out at us in flashes and we don't feel them all the time. We'll need to bind them together and to us. We won't be able to try the actual spell for the first transformation until the first full moon one we're back anyway, so that will give us time to brew the potion."

"Why a full moon? We're not turning into werewolves."

"No, but the lunar cycle has a very powerful influence on animals. Our inner animals will be more easily awakened under a full moon."

"Are we supposed to have a certain number of tokens to do it?" Harry asked, his groin aching terribly as they talked over it.

"The more the better, but it can't be done with no less than five. We have to be able to form a pentagram with the objects. I counted mine and I have six, so I can just move on to the next step. And who knows, by summer's end I might have more.

"There is a spell you'll have to learn before we make our first attempt."

Harry scowled.

Hermione smirked. "Really, Harry, did you think you'd manage an accomplishment such as this without some work?"

"Hoped so," Harry corrected.

Hermione chuckled and flipped through the book's pages. "Although chronic avoidance of effort makes me wonder if there'll be a post back from Ron by the time we get home."

"Maybe. Wish I could have seen Ron's face when Hedwig showed up black as midnight when I sent her to stay at the Burrow for our two weeks here."

"I'd be surprised if Ron noticed," Hermione put the book aside, rolled over, and lay on her stomach with her arms folded under her chin. Her roll brought her into the barest of contact with Harry's outer thigh. When she closed her eyes and turned her head to the side it moved her hair aside so that Harry could see her shoulder. Her shirt collar was skewed and pulled over just enough for him to see her bikini tan-line. He glanced down at his forearms and had to admit he'd never seen them look anything less than pasty before now.

"When I was little," Hermione mumbled, eyes still shut, "I imagined I'd build a house here, right in the cove. Not that one would actually fit, but I pretended that it would."

"A little small-scale castle to be your Camelot?" Harry teased.

Hermione smiled without opening her eyes. "Something like that."

"Sounds nice."

"You ever dream of where you'd live when you grew up?"

"Not really. Just dreamed of anywhere but the Dursleys'."

"Hmm…" Hermione hummed under her breath.

"Most of my dreams back then were that my parents were never killed and I could be living with them."

Hermione frowned faintly, eyes still shut. "And now?"

Harry thought a moment. "It hasn't really changed much."

Hermione was silent for a time, looking very much asleep, then she murmured, "We need to do this at Hogwarts when we go back."

"Do what?"

"Talk."

"We talked before."

"Not like we do now."

Harry had to concede that to her. "We will."

"Good," she took a deep breath and exhaled through her mouth. She was utterly still a moment, looking so blissfully content and peaceful, then a look of hazy concentration fixed on her features. She opened her eyes and glanced up at Harry searchingly. In one smooth motion she rose to her knees and knelt before him, gaze intent. Harry raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Hermione reached into her bookbag and pulled out the pair of small scissors they'd taken to bringing along with them, after they had proved so useful that first time. She regarded him a moment, started toward him and halted, fidgeted, then asked, "May I?"

Harry realized what she meant. "Yeah."

Hermione leaned over him, plucked at his hair, chose with care, and snipped. Her hand came away with a small pinch of black hairs between her fingers. She stared at them, blinked, then smiled up at Harry. "Seven," she said then retrieved her marble bag and added Harry's lock of hair.

"Did you know we could token off each other?" he asked as she shoved the small bag, lumpy and misshapen from its contents, back into her pocket. "Honestly, no… I wouldn't think we're animal enough to count. But we can't ignore a token." She checked her watch. "Oh, we'd better head back."

Hermione stuffed the book in the bookbag she'd brought along and went over to Tiggy. Harry stood, a little awkwardly since he was still at attention down below. There was a pair of tree stumps on the far side of the small pond, one half the size of the other, that served as perfect steps to be able to mount Tiggy. It suggested Hermione was right that she was far from the first in her family to adopt this sanctuary, but they didn't mention the convenience of the stumps. Harry picked up the bag and walked around the water. When he reached Hermione and Tiggy, Hermione was already mounted and waiting. Harry handed her the bag, scaled the two stumps, and got on to the horse behind her. On reflex, initially to steady himself, Harry slipped his arm around Hermione's waist.

"Well, best get back." She took up the reins and commanded Tiggy forward, away from Avalon.

Harry didn't think to remove his arm from around her waist until halfway back to the barn.


	22. Chapter 22

Hermione was sitting on the couch between her father and Kimmy watching the spectacle before them and doing a poor job of hiding her smile. Jake was looking up from a wizard's book on Quidditch, complete with moving pictures, Kimmy was dressed in a pair of jungle-camouflage boxer shorts and swinging her feet from side to side on the cushion. Crookshanks was curled in the armchair, sleeping and oblivious to the scene playing out before him. Hedwig, transformed back to her snowy white self and in a much better mood for it, was perched on the back of the chair and preening her feathers.

In the center of the living room, Miranda was squaring off with Harry… and she was winning.

"But I really don't think that's necessary, Missus Granger," Harry pleaded.

Miranda shook her head. "Harry, I can see your socks."

Harry glanced down toward his feet where the hem of his jeans just barely touched the top of the sides of his trainers. When he moved his leg, there was a flash of white from the sock underneath. He frowned and looked toward Hermione for some help. Hermione just smiled and sat back.

"Face it, dear, you need new clothes," Miranda said. "You can't very well go back to school tomorrow without any clothes that fit. I'll just not have it."

"Dudley's old clothes will still fit."

Miranda looked affronted.

Jake chuckled. "Son, just concede defeat. It'll be the better for you to surrender now."

Harry looked over at Jake (for a split second he looked shocked), looked back to Miranda, then his shoulders sagged.

Miranda, seeing she'd broken him, patted him on the shoulder. "There's a good boy. We'll go out today and get you some new clothes."

"But we just did that at the first of summer," Harry mumbled.

"Yes, but as you saw fit to grow in leaps and bounds you'll just have to do it again. How you could grow so much in a single summer boggles me."

Jake snorted. "They say you do the most growing when you sleep," he glanced over at Harry, "the way this boy's slept the summer away we should count ourselves fortunate that he's not seven feet tall by now."

"Oh, you leave him alone," Miranda shushed her husband.

"Eating like a horse probably had a fair bit to do with it, too," Jake retorted.

Harry glanced at Hermione, his smile and hers faltered momentarily, then Harry sighed. "I haven't grown _that_ much."

"Well, you really have, Harry," Hermione jumped up from the couch and stepped up to stand toe to toe with him. She had to look up to meet his eyes. He was almost a head taller. Harry looked startled by the contrast. "Well, yes, but I'm wearing…" he looked down to comment on his shoes… only to see Hermione was wearing shoes, too. He stopped and frowned, for a moment genuinely baffled.

Hermione chuckled. "Well, it won't be enough to catch you up with Ron, but definitely a growth spurt."

"Huh." Harry looked over at Miranda. "All right, Missus Granger, I yield."

"Wise boy," Jake remarked from the couch.

"You two already went to that wizard market and saw to your school supplies, right?" Miranda asked. Harry and Hermione had gone to Diagon Alley on their own (with Kimmy as escort, of course) one day last week to get the books for their next term while Miranda and Jake were at work. Miranda hadn't liked the idea of them going off alone, but Hermione had been persistent. Jake seemed to think they were well old enough to go by themselves. It had been her husband as a champion in their corner that finally made Miranda give in and allow it. One morning the four of them left the house earlier than usual, and before work Miranda and Jake dropped Harry, Hermione, and dog-form Kimmy off at the train station. They didn't pick the trio up until Jake and Miranda were on their way home that evening. The two teens had come to the car package-laden and laughing from their day-long outing. Predictably, Hermione was chattering up a storm about their upcoming year of school. Miranda felt the beginning of term coming with a heavy heart. She knew Hermione loved Hogwarts very dearly, but it was hard to see her daughter leave every term, knowing she'd be gone for months. In the past they could at least count on Christmas as a break in the long absence… but after this last year Miranda was no longer so sure Christmas could be guaranteed. Miranda had a plan for that already in the works. Since this last Christmas Hermione had stayed at school because of Harry, Miranda would just invite Harry to stay with them next Christmas. But that was half a term away. For now, there was still the start of term to worry about.

"Yes, Mum," Hermione answered, "and we had to get new robes, the both of us. Our old ones didn't fit."

Miranda shook her head. "Weeds, the both of you. Growing like weeds."

"This book is great, Harry," Jake said as he flipped a page, "thank you for picking this up for me."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I know my stick figures weren't really doing much of a job of explaining Quidditch, and since Hermione had us dallying in the bookstore for three hours…"

Hermione blushed and looked down.

Jake laughed. "Oh, that's our Hermione. To my benefit. It looks like an absolutely _fascinating_ game. And you play this 'seeker' position?"

Harry nodded.

"From this book, looks like quite a tough spot to play."

Hermione grinned. "Oh, it's the most challenging Quidditch position on the whole team. A seeker has to be the fastest, with the best reflexes, and has to be fearless. Some of the maneuvers I've seen Harry pull off chasing that infernal golden ball…"

Jake looked to Harry with a smirk and winked at him. "And Hermione says she doesn't know a thing about Quidditch."

"Hermione knows something about everything; if she says she doesn't know anything then she's plain lying," Harry answered and Hermione harrumphed.

"You'd outgrown your school robes?" Miranda asked, still fixated on her original topic, and looked closely at Hermione, "maybe you should come along too and get some new clothes as well."

Harry laughed, as if turn-about was fair play.

Hermione shrugged, not nearly as agonized by the prospect of shopping for clothes as Harry. "All right, then. And I can help you pick out stuff for Harry!" she beamed at him.

Jake slammed the book shut (inside came the squawk of startled Quidditch players), "Don't, Harry. By all things decent and holy, don't. Never let your girl pick your clothes, wars have been fought over less."

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Honestly."

"Don't be daft, Dad, and besides, Harry won't mind a little advice, would you?"

Harry looked between Hermione, Miranda, and Jake, all three watching him, then answered, "Well, I…" he glanced at Hermione and seemed to weigh his final decision on her face, "Hermione's advice has yet to steer me wrong." In fact, more times than not it had saved his life. Seemed a small thing to trust her to suggest shirts.

Hermione smiled brightly. Jake, despite his dire warning, looked oddly pleased with Harry's answer, as though he had unknowingly been tested.

"It's settled, then. We're off, Jake, come along, you two," Miranda gestured them toward the front door. As Harry was passing the armchair, Crookshanks leapt up on the back beside Hedwig and meowed at him. Harry scratched the cat behind the ears with a faint chuckle. "I remember; I'll bring you some ice cream this time."

When they were gone and Jake was alone in the house he shook his head, sighed, and opened the Quidditch book once more.

* * *

That night, Harry lay in bed and stared up at the dark ceiling, fingers interlaced behind his head. He couldn't sleep. Tomorrow they'd wake early and head to King's Cross to board the Hogwarts Express for their return to Hogwarts. Kimmy wouldn't be going to the train station with them; she would see them off at the house then retire to her closet abode to dispense with her quarters and return to Hogwarts via her floo into the headmaster's office. Hedwig was secure in her cage on the dresser, a little dour at being unable to fly (unavoidable since they'd changed her back to white), but soon enough she'd be back at the owlery of Hogwarts and completely free to fly. She seemed to understand that and gave only a few doleful hoots before falling silent. Harry's things were packed, his trunk at the foot of his bed containing all of his possessions, including the new clothes he'd bought earlier that day. He had a set of muggle attire out for the morning trek to King's Cross, and his new school robes were on the top of the pile in his packed trunk so it would be easy to fetch them when they all changed on the train. He was ready to go.

Usually the return to Hogwarts was the most eagerly anticipated day of his summer. This year… he wasn't so sure. Normally his summers were so atrocious that the beginning of school was a manner of salvation. This summer had been different. The Grangers had welcomed him to their home and unknowingly given him the best summer of his life. It would be bittersweet to say goodbye to that.

And to what would he return? Possibly Voldemort. Maybe his death. Maybe the death of those he cared about. For once, he didn't want to go back. He wanted to disappear, to be invisible to the world. He wanted to be in Avalon with Hermione.

His door creaked open and a familiar, tentative whisper issued forth into the night's silence. "Harry?"

Harry looked toward the door, his vision blurry since his glasses were on the nightstand beside him, but he didn't need to see to know his visitor. "Yeah?"

Hermione slipped into his room, shut the door, and padded over to his bed in flannel pajamas. "Good, you're awake." She sat down on the edge of the bed beside Harry. He didn't bother to move over… it forced her to touch his side, and he rather liked it. "It's so hard to sleep before the first day back to school," she whispered excitedly, "it's the like the night before Christmas."

"If you say so," Harry mumbled. His Christmases had been of two varieties, locked in his cupboard so he wouldn't ruin Dudley's Christmas morning, or one of only a few homeless, orphan Hogwarts students who had no place to go.

Hermione looked down at him and he instantly wished he hadn't said anything. "Oh, Harry, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he turned his head to face her. "I can't sleep either."

Hermione stared upward, "I've been thinking..."

"Wow, what a shock."

Hermione swatted his arm. Harry chuckled. Hermione shook her head, and he could sense that she had a smile on her face, though he couldn't see it.

"About what?" he asked.

"Our 'project'." Hermione was wired with excitement, it read in the mere tone of her voice. "It just hit me, we might actually be able to do it. We've done the really hard part of it, the part most witches and wizards can't manage. I'm just so nervous… but so _thrilled_. I can't wait for the first full moon."

"I've been thinking, too."

Hermione turned in his direction. "About?"

"Avalon, actually. I was kind of thinking it would be really nice to never have to leave there, never have anybody know where we were… just disappear."

Hermione went still. Finally, she ventured lowly, "Voldemort."

"Yeah."

Hermione sighed. "I've been trying _not_ to think about that, but seems I can't help it."

"Me neither."

Hermione didn't speak, but Harry could still tell she was tense. He could almost hear her uneasiness in her breathing, and he could picture her face so well that he imagined her expression and would lay gold on his being right.

He scooted over on his bed and beckoned gently, "Come here, Mione."

Hermione wordlessly lay down on the bed beside him and turned on her side. Harry sidled up behind her and rested his head on the pillow next to hers, nearly lost in her wild hair. By now he was used to that stomach flutter and heart patter that jolted through him. Hermione gave a breathy exhale. "It won't be the same," Hermione said faintly. "When we go back."

"No, it won't." Harry let the night swallow them a second before he said, "But whatever happens, I want you to know this has been the best summer of my life."

Hermione caught her breath. "Really?"

"Yeah." Harry closed his eyes and breathed in… the scent of Hermione's hair was thick in his nostrils.

Hermione sighed in the darkness. "I'm glad you came home with me."

"Me too. I got to see what it's supposed to be like."

"What what's supposed to be like?" Hermione asked over her shoulder, barely rolling in his direction to try and look at him.

"A family," Harry replied gruffly. He cleared his throat. "I think this is what my mum and dad would have been like. I can't see them being like the Weasleys. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Weasleys, but I don't think that's what my parents would have been like. I think they would have been like yours. Or I like to think." Before he could think on what he was doing, Harry draped his arm over Hermione's waist.

He didn't know how she might react to that, but when she snuggled back against him it was not wholly unexpected. Somehow, it filled a hollow in him. They lay quietly together, each lost in their own thoughts. Hermione didn't show any signs of leaving, and while Harry would have been fine with that, it was he who eventually said, "You probably ought to go back to your room."

"Why?" she said in a sleepy voice.

"Because I don't want your dad to catch us like this."

Hermione paused, and she seemed a little perplexed. "What about my mum?"

Harry frowned. "I like the idea of your dad catching us less."

"How come?"

"Not sure. Just the same, I don't want to find out why."

Hermione sighed. "You're probably right."

Harry couldn't help the involuntary squeeze he gave Hermione's middle before he let her go. Hermione moved off his bed and headed toward the door. "See you in the morning, Harry." She slipped out of his bedroom as silently as she'd entered, and Harry rolled over on his other side. The memory of her stealing away from his bedroom in the middle of the night brought a small smile to Harry's lips.


	23. Chapter 23

Ronald Weasley stood on platform nine and three-quarters looking around for his two best friends. The twins were already on the train, they'd rated escaping their mother's rains of kisses on the cheek a greater need than greeting Harry on the platform. As Ron wiped at his cheek, he almost had to agree. But he was too anxious to see his companions, so he'd suffered a parting mother. He'd only talked to Harry and Hermione via owl a few times over the summer, and it seemed like this summer had been the longest he'd gone without seeing either of them. Typically he'd see Harry once at the Burrow, and truth be told he was a little surprised Harry hadn't come to spend the other half of the summer with them. But no matter, they'd all be packing on to the train in short order, the trio once again. And this time, he had some great stories to tell them about his summer! This would make Egypt look like a Hogwarts class trip.

Ginny came up beside him. "Any sign of them?" Her long red hair was twisted, knotted, and laid against the back of her neck, a style common among the witch dragon-keepers who did that to help keep their hair from catching on fire from an unruly dragon. One of the witch dragon-trainers had shown Ginny how to do it.

"Not yet," Ron said. "They better bloody hurry or they'll miss the train."

Ginny stood on tip-toe (it barely brought her to shoulder-height next to her towering brother), and she cried and pointed, "Oh! There they are!"

"Where?" Ron looked around the crowd.

"Right there, silly. They're just saying bye to the Grangers."

Ron followed Ginny's finger and squinted. Then his eyes widened. It was Harry and Hermione, all right, but Ron didn't even recognize them at first. Hermione's hair was longer, past her shoulders, with sun-streaked gold highlights. Her skin was lightly tanned and her body… well, from a distance she actually looked like a girl, even in jeans.

Harry was beside her, and Ron could scarcely believe his eyes. It hardly looked like Harry at all. He was loads taller than when he'd left at end of term. His hair was shorter, though still out of control in the back. Harry, too, sported a tan, and in addition he… well, Ron wasn't one to ogle a bloke's body, but Harry could hardly be called 'scrawny' anymore.

Ron gaped as he watched Hermione's mother kiss and hug Hermione, then do the same to Harry, and while Hermione hugged her dad Harry stood back. Hermione's dad and Harry shook hands, then Ron's two best friends turned and moved to their trolleys.

"Hermione!" Ginny called out and waved. Hermione looked up, spotted Ginny, and waved. Ginny dashed off to meet them halfway and Ron finally snapped out of his stupor and followed at a much cooler brisk walk.

When he reached his friends Hermione and Ginny were hugging. Harry stood casually at the handle bar of his trolley, watching on with a patient smile and devil-may-care stance. Hell, he looked half the part of a ruddy movie star, what with his new tan, and new hair cut, and new frame. At least he still had the glasses. Ron would expect it was a Death Eater who'd downed polyjuice potion if he didn't have the glasses.

Ginny let go of Hermione, whirled to Harry, and she shrieked. "Harry! You're so tall!" She jumped up at him and threw her arms around his neck. Harry bent over in surprise and chuckled, and thank Merlin it was still the same old uncomfortable-bashful Harry chuckle. "Come on, not even close to as tall as Ron."

Ginny moved her arms away from his neck and pinched his arms. Harry pulled back and looked at her, baffled. "_Shite_, Harry!" Ginny giggled, "someone's been working out."

Harry freed himself from Ginny's grasp with an embarrassed grimace.

"Leave the man alone, Gin," Ron finally found his voice. Mostly because he didn't quite like watching his sister man-handle some boy, even if it was Harry.

"Hey, Ron," Harry said with a smile.

"Bloody hell, mate," Ron said as he shooed his sister away and stepped closer to his friends. "I hardly recognize you."

Harry rubbed the back of his neck a bit uncomfortably at all the attention. "Good to see you." Ginny had been right about the working out bit. When Harry lifted his arm to worry the nape of his neck in an oh-so-Harry gesture there was a shifting of bicep muscle before the shirt sleeve covered it up. Bloody hell indeed.

"Yeah, you too, and Hermione," Ron turned to address Hermione, and for a moment he was tongue-tied. Up close, she looked even more the girl than she had from a distance. Ron had _so_ not been expecting _that_! She looked fit, tan, shapely… she even had a fair set of breasts. Or had she always and he just hadn't noticed before? Surely he'd have noticed something like that. Well, he certainly noticed now. Ron found himself having a bit of a time looking up from them, in fact. When he did, he blurted the first thing that came so elegantly to mind. "Hell, Hermione, you're hot!"

Hermione blushed and looked away. Ron wanted to slap himself on the forehead. From the look on his face, Harry might volunteer to do the honors.

"So… how was Romania?" Hermione asked to change the subject.

Ron blinked, stammered, then remembered his adventure-filled holiday and how he was going to impress and regale his two best friends. "Oh, yeah, it was great! I've got loads to tell the both of you. Better tell you on the train, though, if we don't get a move on they're apt to leave without us."

Harry, Hermione, and Ron boarded the train and found an empty compartment near the back. They stowed their trunks and pet carriers while Ron prattled on about his time at the dragon lair. Students passed by the open compartment door, and the first indication that things weren't quite the same as last year was how few people stopped to call in a hello to Harry. As often as not, classmates seemed apt to duck from meeting his eyes and hurry by. Ron stood with his back to the door, oblivious, but Hermione looked once at Harry with a frown.

Harry sighed and turned to Ron, "Could you close the door, Ron?"

"Huh? Oh, sure," Ron turned and slid the door shut. Harry sat down on one bench of the compartment. Hermione moved to sit beside him. Ron sat opposite them and leaned in. "Harry, I completely understand now. About you and the dragons, I mean. Had a bit of a run-in with a Hungarian Horntail myself." Ron pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and turned slightly to show them. Hermione gasped. There was a burn mark on his upper arm, easily marring a good six inches of freckled skin. The train jarred under them as it started to get underway.

Hermione leaned forward and inspected the scarred-over wound.

"Yeah, real nasty beasts, those Horntails, eh, Harry? You know, I thought it was bad enough watching you tangle with that one last year, but really loads meaner up close and personal-like, they are. If I hadn't turned my head when I did, near as like this one would have gotten me on the face."

The compartment door slid open and Ginny poked her head in. Ron quickly lowered his shirt sleeve, but not before Ginny saw it. She got a devilish look in her eye and turned her gaze to Harry and Hermione, "Oh, is he having you on about that burn of his?"

"Go away, Ginny," Ron snapped.

"You mean that wasn't from a Hungarian Horntail?" Hermione asked.

Ginny came into the compartment, closed the door behind her, and sat beside her brother. "Oh, it is… but the way Ron tells it you'd think he was wrangling a sire-male over a mate-ready female."

"Shut up, Ginny," Ron spat and glowered darkly at his sister.

Ginny ignored her brother and said, "It's from a hatchling. We were warding over a batch of newborns and he wasn't looking and a hatchling Horntail burped."

Hermione sniggered but quickly covered her mouth with a quick look at Ron, amusement still in her eyes though she tried to hide it. Harry laughed. Ron gave his sister a sour look.

"Don't worry, Ron," Hermione said as she dropped her hand. "We won't tell anyone."

Ron gave a lop-sided smirk, "Thanks a bunch," and he shot a look at Ginny, "_some_ people know how to be decent to a fellow."

"What I'd like to know," Ginny said, mindless of her brother's wounded pride, "is what happened with you two?"

Harry cocked his head in confusion and Hermione's brow furrowed.

"You're both… _different_. Hell, you're both buff!"

Hermione looked shy about it. "Not all that different, Harry and I just thought it might be a good idea to work up our strength a bit this summer. Never know when it might prove useful. We didn't have much to do once we finished all our homework, so we did a spot of exercising. Speaking of, are _you_ finished with _your_ homework, Ron?"

Ron conveniently ignored Hermione's question. "Blimey, Hermione, your house must be like a boot camp from the looks of you two."

Hermione looked bothered by the remark.

Harry frowned. "We both thought it would be a good idea." There was an ever-so-subtle edge to his voice. Not surprisingly, it went over Ron's head.

"Well, I doubt you'll get many complaints," Ginny said with a snicker and another look at Harry. Harry blinked at his friend's little sister, confused again.

Ron groaned, "Shove off, Ginny, I can't stomach any more of it. Go find some of your giggly friends and stop _drooling_!"

Ginny cast a sidelong glance at Hermione and stood, leaning over her brother, "Oh, like you haven't—"

"Get!" Ron yelled, his ears as red as his hair, and Ginny complied with an unruffled strut.

"A real _spitfire_, that one," Ron grumbled when she was gone. "OH! I almost forgot to ask, what was the deal with Hedwig showing up at the Burrow _black_?!"

The first half of the train ride was taken up with swapped stories of their summer holidays. Ron spared no detail, overlooked no recount of his time in Romania with the dragons. Even once they were back at the Burrow it seemed there'd been a small disaster involving the twins and a new experiment that actually ended up ridding the Weasleys of their attic ghoul… as well as their attic, and a rabid garden gnome that wreaked havoc for several weeks, chasing around anyone who went out into the yard. By comparison, Harry and Hermione's quiet summer full of homework, exercise, and a trip to grandma's was utterly dull. It was a flip from the usual, where Harry was beset by more action that he cared for and Ron complained of his average, boring life. All were the happier for the switch.

At the midpoint of the trip, the snack trolley came through the train corridor. Harry bought them all sweets and they whiled away a few miles with the countryside whipping past their window talking about the upcoming year and nibbling on candy and treats. Hermione had a good list of subjects she was looking forward to taking for several reasons, and proceeded to share them with her friends. Ron looked surreptitiously at Harry and made a 'shut up already' face and ticked his head at Hermione, who was still talking enthusiastically about advanced Arithmancy and fifth year History of Magic. Harry had actually been listening to Hermione, _and_ paying attention, thank you very much, and when Ron gave him that look Harry was a bit peeved. He didn't _think_ he scowled at Ron, but the startled blink and shrug of 'what gives?' before Ron was distracted by a hopping chocolate frog made Harry suspect that he unintentionally had. Neville popped in to say hi (he seemed painfully shy around Hermione), and Seamus stopped by sporting a new earring. Hermione informed him that McGonagall would make him take it out first thing. Fred and George swung in for a bit, teased Harry about beefing up for the benefit of the fine young girls of Hogwarts, flirted playfully with Hermione, then darted out again with furtive looks when a small explosion was heard a few compartments over.

As the afternoon wore toward evening, things got quiet. The flurry of reunions had ebbed and chatter in the corridor outside the compartment had decreased as everyone settled into the part of waiting to arrive at school. Harry and Hermione let their familiars out of their cages for a bit of a break… by unanimous decision, Pig was kept securely in his cage. Hedwig was rocking with the train's motion on the bench space next to Ron, dozing. Crookshanks was curled up in Harry's lap sleeping.

Hermione looked up from her much-beloved Hogwarts, A History and stretched her arms over her head and gave an enormous yawn. Harry smirked… he knew very well how late Hermione had been up last night. When he turned to glance at Hermione he caught Ron out of the corner of his eye. Ron was staring at Hermione's stomach… when she lifted her arms overhead her shirt rode up and exposed a strip of lightly muscled abdomen. Ron looked stupefied. Harry glowered and threw a chocolate frog box at him. Ron yipped and jumped then looked quickly out the window as though he hadn't been stealing a look.

Hermione brought her arms down and looked around, "What?"

"Nothing," Harry answered, then lifted Crookshanks out of his lap, to the cat's disgruntled meow, "sorry, Crookshanks, I gotta go to the loo."

Harry slipped out of the compartment and made his way to the end of the train where a loo was in the caboose. The boys' and girls' bathrooms were squished close together, and just as Harry was coming out of the boys' restroom someone was coming out of the girls' and they bumped into each other.

The girl squeaked and Harry, on reflex, reached up and grabbed her shoulders. "Sorry."

The girl proved to be Parvati Patil. She looked up at him and for a moment didn't seem to know who he was. Then she gasped when recognition finally assailed her. "Harry! You're alive!"

Harry dropped his hands and backed up at the odd outburst. "Last time I checked."

Parvati blinked at him then seemed to register her blunder. "Sorry… I'd heard over the summer… oh, never mind, it doesn't matter what I heard."

Harry studied Parvati in the whole of a second. She hadn't changed much over the summer, though it seemed she looked more tired, more subdued. He was hard-pressed to find the pushy girl he'd taken to the Yule Ball. She looked like she'd suffered the death of a classmate and that it had not left her unscathed. Harry returned to her remark with trepidation. "What did you hear?"

Parvati sighed and wrung her hands in front of her chest, dark skin and hair for the moment making her seem that much glummer. "Just… well, Lavender told Angelina who told me you'd been abducted by a band of Death Eaters right out of your aunt and uncle's home and… You Know Who killed you…"

"Right. Well, no." Harry moved past Parvati and headed back toward the compartment he shared with Hermione and Ron. Things were some semblance of sane with his two friends, at least.

Parvati ran after him and put her hand on his shoulder. Harry stopped and turned to her.

"I'm glad you're not dead," she said softly.

"Uh… thanks."

"Someone else said, someone who said you _hadn't_ been killed, that you wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts…"

"_Shouldn't_ be, you mean," a third voice joined theirs. Unmistakable. Harry and Parvati turned to the bleach blonde head poking out of the nearest compartment door. Draco Malfoy. Parvati scowled and stepped away as though the Slytherin was oozing puss. Harry wanted to groan. Bloody perfect.

Draco Malfoy was thinner, taller, and his features seemed even sharper than last year. He looked cast of iron, the edges still ungrounded, ugly, and near as like to cut you for coming too close. If possible, Draco looked perhaps even paler, his nearly-white hair longer and the most unkempt Harry had ever seen the prim and proper Slytherin allow himself to appear. He was rangy in an indulgent prince manner… and just as unsavory.

Draco leaned arrogantly out of his compartment and gave Harry a good up-and-down. "My my, Potter, someone thinks himself quite the stud. Doesn't change your being a complete freak, of course. Think if you make yourself pretty enough the Dark Lord will keep you for a boy toy rather just off and kill you?"

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you, Malfoy?"

Draco sneered. "You're pretty cheeky for a dead man."

Harry glanced at Parvati, "No, actually, we just established that I wasn't dead."

"Now that You Know Who's come back, you'll be the first on his list. Being the bleeding heart you are, I'd expect you to stay away from Hogwarts to save these weaklings. I mean, if you're his target, you'll just be bringing the Dark Lord to the school if you're there."

"You're awful," Parvati hissed.

Draco chuckled. "I'm just not worried myself. He'll only kill the mudbloods and mudblood-lovers, and I'm neither."

Parvati turned, disgusted, and pushed past both boys to stomp off down the train corridor, jet black hair swaying.

Draco looked after Parvati. "Don't think she has the stomach for this kind of thing, you know. None of them do. And here you go bringing it right into Hogwarts. Tisk, tisk, Potter."

"Shut your face, Malfoy."

Draco stood upright… and looked incensed when he wasn't as tall as Harry. "Or you'll what, Potter? Hex me?"

"No, I'll sic Hermione on you. How's your nose, by the way?"

Draco seethed, looked like he might spit, then slammed back into his train compartment. Harry glared at the closed door then started back to his own.

When he cracked open the door to the compartment that he shared with Hermione and Ron, he had to pause a moment at the scene found within. Ron had taken all the chocolate frog cards from all their boxes and was going through them, laying them out in piles. Hedwig was still swaying sleepily to the rhythm of the train on the bench down from Ron. Crookshanks had curled up underneath his and Hermione's bench, a purring ginger ball. Hermione was lying lengthwise on the seat, asleep.

Harry smiled faintly, despite himself, and moved into the compartment. He went to the bench and looked down at Hermione, then he fetched a blanket from the carriage rack overhead and spread it out over her. When he was finished, with an extra tug to bring it around her shoulders and a moment to brush an errant strand of hair away from her cheek, he moved over to the bench and squeezed down between Ron and Hedwig. Hedwig stirred, looked at him, and stepped up on to his thigh for some attention. Harry's hand came up and petted his owl.

Ron looked up from his frog cards, looked over at Hermione… and for a moment he looked constipated.

"All right there, Ron?" Harry asked in a hushed voice so as not to wake Hermione.

Ron shook his head, face contorted. He looked rather like he was sitting a test that he'd not studied for… which was most of them. He scratched at his nose, scowled, then said oddly, "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah, Ron?"

Ron glanced over at him, his expression remarkably schooled for Ron. "Hermione didn't get any letters from Viktor this summer, did she?"

"Krum?" Harry puzzled over the question. Why in the world would Ron care if Krum had written Hermione? "No."

Ron nodded, gave a grunt, and turned back to his frog cards.

Harry was perplexed. He studied Ron a few seconds, then glanced at Hermione still sleeping soundly, then at last turned his attention to Hedwig. She blinked up at him, golden amber eyes wise perhaps, but if she had any insight this time she kept her council. Harry brought up his second hand to stroke her breast feathers, and the owl hooted softly and nibbled on his fingers.

Harry glanced out the window of the moving train. Night had fallen. It made Harry remember just how little sleep he'd gotten himself the night before. He began to look forward to his old bed in Gryffindor tower.

He dropped his head back against the seat cushion and let his eyes drift shut. He ended up dozing off to the sound of Crookshanks purring, the train wheels thrumming, and Ron sorting through a batch of chocolate frog cards.

* * *

Arriving at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy was like looking into a twisted mirror of Erised. On first glance it looked as it should, everything seemed in place, but suddenly there, and there… moments out of place, things not as they once were. Students were bustling through the Great Hall, cheering the first years being sorted into their houses, tearing into the feast laid out over the long house tables… but in the normal there were shocks of wrong. Reminders. A silence held too long, a sidelong look toward Harry, a passing of fear behind young eyes, a gradual but steady shifting away from where Harry sat at the Gryffindor table. Hints of the death everyone could not forget, though they fought so valiantly to pretend it had not happened. Harry was the only reason it couldn't disappear, so they'd let him carry the burden of Cedric and Voldemort and leave them children.

Harry hadn't known what to expect when he returned to school after the Triwizard Tournament. Hermione had spent a summer being so considerate and supportive that he almost fooled himself into thinking it would be like that with everyone. But it was folly, because he was a black stain on the occasion. He'd returned as he left, a receptacle of the ugly and undesired.

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table sandwiched between Ron and Hermione, his buffers. He appreciated them immensely for that. From his place of safety, his zone of acceptance and diehard friendship, he looked around the table at his classmates. He was not the only one to return looking different. Many of his classmates had grown. Some were thinner, some were fatter. Hair was different, some voices had changed, faces were painted for the fresh start when possibilities were as high as the enchanted roof. It was like a room full of masks. Harry felt oddly detached as he watched the farce, the façade of untroubled youth that swirled around him like a masquerade ball. They knew it was fake but they were all so convinced, spurred to believe by acts of desperation alone, that they didn't remember they were acting a part.

And they had the nerve to look at him like he was the problem, the thorn in all their sides. If only they had a chance to see the real thorn, the real blackness over their days. They'd really forget about Harry Potter then, because who would spare a shred of hatred at a boy in the face of Lord Voldemort?

Hermione was close beside him, her arm looped through his, clinging to his forearm as though she'd leaned in to whisper a secret and forgotten what it was… as well as forgotten to move away. Harry owed her a vault-worth for the calm that brought him as he sat in the eye of a storm no one would acknowledge.

Then Dumbledore stood and broached the unspoken, spoke to their collective peril, the dangers that would await them in the future. And then there was a new target. Fear and shock and hate focused on the headmaster, because he dared to speak of it, dared to make it real, had the audacity to tear from them their tissue paper veil of fine. Harry both pitied and was grateful to the headmaster for his act. Dumbledore met his eyes across the room and gave him the barest of nods, a small awareness that, of all of them, this year would be hardest on him, and Harry was more than ready for bed.

As the students filed out of the Great Hall, first years clumped anxiously behind prefects, Harry, Hermione, and Ron lagged behind the rest. The rest of the Gryffindors hurried toward their tower. It was conveniently contrived so that no one noticed, and of course did not do it _intentionally_, as Harry was left to drop back and out of sight. Hermione slipped her hand into his and walked close at his side. Ron dragged his feet on Harry's other side. Even Ron, the king of oblivious, had noticed a mood among the other students. A disquiet. They were a silent trio, Harry walking with his taciturn red-haired friend to one side and his hand holding Hermione's on the other.

When they reached the common room, when the sphere of interaction forced a more personal approach, their classmates were less transparent. Fellow Gryffindors came up to Harry and asked him about his summer, told him he looked well, commiserated about the impending term sure to be horrendously homework-ridden. In the end, there were only a few well and fully rattled Gryffindors who didn't live up to the courage of Godric Gryffindor and greet Harry kindly and welcome him back. Though it was forced and a little tense, it was affirmation that Harry was still one of their housemates, even if he was the perceived reason they had to grow up faster than they ought.

And as Harry sat on the couch next to Hermione, her hand still firmly tangled with his, Ron showing off his Hungarian Horntail battle scar to suitably impressed classmates, he thought 'so, this is how it's going to be'. He glanced at Hermione to find her watching him, her eyes full of fierce loyalty and compassionate understanding, and he remembered their late night words. 'It won't be the same when we go back.' No, it wasn't the same, but then, they'd known it wouldn't be. This was the new normal, and while it may improve or worsen day by day, wax and wane as teenage worlds did, if this was the baseline he could live with it.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: I thought I should comment on something here, because it really is my error. I know it might sound too outlandish to believe, but I completely forgot about prefects for fifth year. Totally slipped my mind. I write this because it only makes sense that at least Hermione would be made a prefect, but I didn't think of it. And since I'm already on page 370 of this story it's too late to go back and work that in. So forgive me this oversight.

Also, another small note as there seems to be some confusion. This story took the HP verse in a completely different direction after fourth year. OotP has no bearing in VC; you may as well throw that book and HBP out the window as far as this fic is concerned.

* * *

"Trevor! You bloody little… get back here!"

"Oiy, Dean, crack the window if you're going to do that, mate! Christ, no more kidney pie for you!"

"So wasn't me, you daft prat. Ron did it."

"I did not!"

"_Someone_ open the window!"

"Don't even think about it! It's the worse out there, remember? _Ugh_!"

"Harry! Come on, get going, it's nearly eight already!"

Harry pulled his pillow over his head, and pressed it to little avail over his nose, and tried to block out the sounds of his roommates. The morning of their first day of classes dawned like so many others over the years at Hogwarts. The brink of chaos, disarray, and a dash of rough and tumble lest anyone forget the room was shared by five young, boisterous boys.

Only a day, and already Harry longed a bit for the quiet, calm mornings at the Grangers'.

Last night, when students finally began to leak out of the common room and up to their beds in the wee hours of the morning, Harry and Hermione had been the last to go. They had stayed together on the couch, sitting side by side, until the crowd had thinned down to just them. The peace had been more than welcome, and Harry had finally felt able to relax, beyond the sight and judgment of everyone save Hermione. He'd lingered downstairs with her as long as he could, but finally her conscious got the better of her and she shoved him toward the boys' dorm and left for her own. After all, school began the next morning and she was the eternal student.

When Harry reached the room he'd shared with Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Neville Longbottom, and Ron for four years, he found the other boys having a small-scale version of the hubbub downstairs. A bag of Bertie Bottz's Every Flavor Beans was involved, and his companions were tasting and hooting and gagging and laughing like teenage boys. Like untroubled, safe teenage boys. They'd offered Harry what looked suspiciously like a rotten-egg-flavored bean, but Harry had begged off, claiming exhaustion, and as the little dorm room reunion raged on he changed into pajamas and crawled into his familiar bed.

And he listened. He lay on his side facing the window so they wouldn't see him awake, but Harry listened to his friends, his roommates of so long, being so normal in spite of everything. He wanted so desperately to join them, to cast off the weights that sobered him, but he couldn't. He couldn't pretend Voldemort hadn't returned or that Cedric wasn't dead. Maybe if he hadn't seen it himself it would be easier to pretend, to be like his friends and shove it out of his thoughts.

Then again, Hermione had never forgotten and she hadn't been witness to that horror. But when Harry thought about it, Hermione had rarely ever been a child, emotionally or psychologically, when it came down to the bare bones of an issue. There was a place inside her where she was and had always been at least thirty years old. And it had served her, and by association him, well.

Now, as last night, his roommates were ever the same as last year, making it sound so easy to go on business as usual. Harry felt a little heartsick with it all and hugged the pillow tighter over his head to block out the sound. He wanted to go home. To his wearied pang of surprise and longing, that place was his room in Hermione's house. His favorite patch of grass at Avalon. A bench under a tree in a muggle park.

"Harry, you better get a move on or you'll be late," Ron called from across the room. Footsteps marked Dean, Seamus, and Neville's departure from the dorm and journey down the stairs.

Harry pointedly ignored his friend's urging and relaxed in relief at the absence of the others. Their laughs and jeers had been a lance, every little joke and tease another part of a youth he could no longer claim. How they flaunted it without knowing their callous end.

Harry wouldn't have minded skipping breakfast entirely just to spare himself his roommates' behavior on a much larger scale, on a school-wide scale, but Ron's voice, this time much closer, refused him that luxury. "Harry? You all right?"

Harry grumbled and rolled on to his stomach, burrowing his head further under his pillow. Maybe if he came across stubborn and surly enough Ron would go away. He usually did. Ron didn't have that pugnacious stick to it that Hermione did. If he was rebuffed once, strongly enough, he usually withdrew.

"I _know_ he doesn't expect to have a lie in."

Harry could have groaned. Hermione. There went all hope of being left to hide in the covers of his bed.

Ron seemed uncharacteristically flustered. "Wha? Oh, um… dunno, he won't get up. You imagine he's all right?"

A short silence then Harry's bed dipped with added weight. Hermione's voice was right above him. "He's fine." She didn't sound as stern or as put out as she might have taking from her manner at the door. Harry shivered just a little when a hand came to rest on the small of his back. He breathed out. Suddenly, the day before him didn't seem quite so bad. He still clung to his pillow fiercely, but now more for the play of it. "Five more minutes," he pleaded, his voice muffled by his pillow.

Hermione snorted and Harry smiled into his mattress.

"Get your lazy arse out of bed and get down to breakfast." She patted him on the back, closer to his shoulders, and got off the bed. Harry was already primed to go along right after her, as though she'd transferred some form of kinetic energy into him with her tap, a reaction following an action.

Instead he grumbled but moved to obey. When he looked about the room after pulling out from under the cover of his pillow he saw Hermione leaving and Ron standing there looking at him with a decidedly queer look on his face.

"You heard her, to breakfast with us," Harry rolled out of bed and hurried to get dressed. Ron stared, puzzled, a few more moments then left to catch up with Hermione while Harry changed into his robes.

* * *

The Great Hall was packed by the time Harry arrived, still straightening his tie and combing his fingers through his hair. He spotted Hermione and Ron sitting together and made quickly for them. Ron had taken the spot next to Hermione, which left Harry to plop down on Ron's other side. If there had been a reaction to his arrival from all the rest in the Great Hall, Harry took great effort not to notice it.

Once Harry was seated, Hermione leaned forward to speak across Ron, "I won't have to train Crookshanks to wake you, will I?" The hint of a smile played across her lips, a twinkle in her soft brown eyes.

"And have that foul-tempered pest in our room every morning? No way," Ron retorted. Hermione gave Ron a scowl as Harry bit into a piece of toast and jam. Ron frowned at Hermione's sharp glare and cleared his throat. "Well, he's a mean one, he is. Don't fancy a bite and a scratch to start the day, do you, Harry?"

"Crookshanks likes me just fine, just you would need worry about getting bitten."

Ron grunted grumpily and tucked into his breakfast.

"Hi, Harry."

All three looked up to see Ginny sit down across from them. She had her long red hair twisted and pinned along the nape of her neck like the dragon-keepers again. Her blue eyes were fixed on Harry, as was her beaming smile, and Harry gave an uncertain, half-hearted semi-smile at the overt greeting from Ron's once-shy and tongue-tied sister. "Uh, hi, Ginny."

Ron frowned and grumbled, "Shouldn't you be sitting with your friends?"

Ginny took a piece of sausage off his plate, to his strangled protest. "Aren't you three my friends, too? Well, two of you in any case." She looked again at Harry… then slid a rather purposeful look in Hermione's direction. The two girls met gazes then backed off at a draw. "I wonder who the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will be this year. I didn't see anyone new at the feast last night, did you?"

"No," Harry recalled, "I didn't."

"Maybe they're still trying to fill the position. It's always been a difficult one to staff," Hermione offered.

"Maybe they finally gave it to Snape," Ginny mused as she chewed.

Ron snorted. "And maybe Dumbledore decided to retire from being headmaster of Hogwarts and join the Chudley Cannons."

Harry smirked at the mental image.

The four of them resumed their breakfast only to be interrupted by Professor McGonagall moving down the Gryffindor table handing out class schedules. When she reached their place at the table, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny put down their food to study their schedules. Ginny jumped up to scurry off and compare with her friends in her year. Harry, Hermione, and Ron perused their own.

"They've really cut down on Care of Magical Creatures," Hermione noted, "only twice a week. Poor Hagrid."

"Forget Care of Magical Creatures," Ron blurted, "you see this? Defense Against the Dark Arts every day and then _twice_ on Tuesday and Friday?! That's Defense Against the Dark Arts seven times a week! What the bloody hell is up with that?"

Harry was studying the same double-course on his schedule in pensive silence. Hermione ended up voicing his own thoughts. "Maybe with You Know Who come back Dumbledore wants us to be better prepared for… anything."

Ron swallowed heavily and went tensely silent.

From a few places over at the Gryffindor table they heard Neville moan piteously. "Oh no! Extra Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions every day of the week! And no Herbology! Oh, I'm going to fail!" He sounded truly distraught and the three exchanged sympathetic looks.

Hermione tucked her schedule into her pocket. "Come on, we best go get our books for class."

Harry and Ron, still boggling over their schedules for the year, followed Hermione out of the Great Hall.

* * *

Harry was sandwiched on a stool between his two best friends in the potion master's dungeon classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive. Harry was none to happy with the timing of this particular class, but Ron to his left was (predictably) far more vocal on the matter.

"This term's cursed already. Potions first thing right off." He slumped miserably over his dauntingly large Potions' text book, which smelled suspiciously of sweat of harpy and toad's breath. They all had the bitter smell, such that the boys in Harry's dorm tower had all decided to leave their Potions books outside on a conjured window ledge. When Ron sagged in dejection and it brought his nose nearer his book his face screwed and he shoved the malodorous tome aside, nearly off the table completely.

Harry rather agreed with Ron, but Hermione on his right leaned in and for a second he couldn't rightly remember why Potions was so wretched.

"Really, Ron, you oughtn't to complain so much, Potions is a really important subject to learn." Harry glanced at Hermione's insanely close face. With her leaning into his shoulder to talk across to Ron, he caught a whiff of her hair and there was the threatening of that stomach lurch he'd become quite prone to… although it seemed with the rather pungent smells in the Potions room the stomach lurch couldn't be brought to full strength by such a small hint of reprieve.

Ron scowled across at Hermione a split-second, then his face turned an odd color, his shifted up in his seat, and his voice was remarkably brought to heel when he answered, "I'm just saying it's a bad sign for the term, is all."

Harry left puzzling over Ron's odd behavioral shift to quip, "Nope, best save that for Trelawney."

Ron smirked.

Hermione leaned back away with a huff. "I cannot believe you two signed up for Divination again this term. You both know it is absolute rubbish."

Ron had something to say about that, too. "It's an easy course. You make up some dreams, fake some shapes in sludge at the bottom of a tea cup, come up with a few ways for Harry to die…" Ron stopped short and a sharp tension seemed to knife its way into the conversation.

Hermione gasped softly, and Harry could see she had momentarily stopped breathing. Harry felt it only as a coldness in his chest, a heavy, icy weight. And it had been so normal up until that moment.

"Sorry, mate," Ron said awkwardly.

Harry gave a lop-sided, half-ass smile. "No worries. I imagine this year that's all we'll need to do to get top marks in that class. No doubt Trelawney's been working at it all summer holiday."

Ron gave a chuckle, but it was short and poorly faked. Hermione opened her Potions book and flipped through it for something else to focus on. With every page she turned a little breath of sweet, flowery smells wafted past Harry. He'd have to ask her what she did to her book to get rid of the awful odor.

The door to the classroom at their backs banged open and conversation in the room came to an absolute halt. Professor Snape, disagreeable and surly as ever, swept into the room, but rather than head straight for his desk at the front of the classroom, he stopped at the back row of tables and held out his hand. "Your Potions books."

The students on the back table, baffled, passed their smelly books over to the teacher. Snape took it, held it before him as though inspecting the cover, then gave it back with a sneer and glower. When he finished the last row he moved up one and did the same. Again, queer looks and uncertain obedience from the students.

When he reached the table where Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat they, too, gave Snape their books. When Snape held up Hermione's he snorted. "Well done, Miss Granger." Only Snape could manage to make a compliment sound so insincere and condescending. "I might have expected you would figure it out." With nary a further glance he returned the flowery book to Hermione. When Harry reclaimed his own book he set it down and sat back from it as far as possible.

By the time Snape reached the front of the room he looked thoroughly disgusted. He turned to the class with a sour scan of the confused faces of his students.

"It would seem that among the lot of you Miss Granger was the only one who saw fit to actually do something effective about the horrible smells your books are emitting. They were made that way to test you, and I am not surprised to say all but one of you has failed the first assignment."

A murmur of disgruntled protest rose and fell just as quickly. Snape scowled at them and crossed his arms. "I will credit some of you with what appeared to be pathetic attempts at masking charms, smell inhibitors, and even _dung bombs_ to try and overcome the stench. If you had only bothered to research in the books that were right in front of your affronted noses, you would have discovered the chapter detailing the daffodilis potion was entered into the book with the last ingredient missing. Miss Granger, since you were the only one who bothered to open your book and figure it out, would you tell your mentally challenged classmates what you did?"

Hermione glanced sideways at Harry with a guilty shrug. "I… the daffolidis potion in chapter twelve was missing the last ingredient, foxglove. I found the ingredient list for the daffodilis in the index, and it was complete there, but in the chapter where it was detailed how to combine the ingredients to complete the potion, foxglove was missing. I simply wrote in foxglove where it belonged and the book stopping smelling horrible and started smelling like flowers."

"Exactly." Snape looked particularly disappointed with his house students holding their noses to his left. "Five points to Gryffindor." Snape turned and marched to his blackboard.

Ron whispered under his breath, "I bet he pulled something doing that."

Harry smiled bitterly.

Hermione leaned in again to Harry and whispered, "I'm _sorry_, Harry, I would have told you had I known Professor Snape was going to…"

"Miss Granger," Snape interrupted smugly, "my rules have not changed from last term, no talking during class. Five points from Gryffindor."

Hermione snapped her mouth shut and sat up straight.

Ron said even lower, "Well, it was nice while it lasted."

Hermione shot a look in Ron's direction but didn't dare speak again.

Harry sighed, and while Snape began to outline the objectives for their present term he flipped to chapter twelve and took up his quill, anxious to write in 'foxglove'.


	25. Chapter 25

When Gryffindor's fifth year students filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, everyone was looking around eagerly for their new teacher. Since breakfast who would be the new Defense teacher had become an oft-mentioned topic of conversation. There were murmurs of curiosity and speculative glances when they found themselves the only ones in the classroom. The teacher had not yet arrived.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were the last ones to enter the room. There was already a buzz of talk between the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs who had preceded them. The three of them stopped just inside the door and gave each other looks.

"Well," Ron mused and leveled a measuring look at Hermione, "suppose Hermione has the right of it and we don't have a teacher for Defense yet?"

Hermione now seemed far less convinced of her own supposition. "They wouldn't schedule it for us if we weren't to have it, would they?" The class-full of students were moving around and chatting. Every once in a while a paper ball was launched across the room. There was no sign of a teacher to bring the class to heel.

"Maybe one of the other teachers is going to sub in until we do have a Defense teacher," Harry said as he repositioned his bag over his shoulder.

"Has the state of education degraded to the point where I have to teach you how to find your seats?" a coarse male voice intoned from close behind the three friends.

Harry turned and jumped back quickly when he came face to face with Mad-Eye Moody's mismatched eyes… one brown and squinty, the other magical, enlarged, and electric blue. Harry, in a split second, remembered watching that very face melt and bubble and contort to reveal Barty Crouch Junior. His right arm ached like a flash-fire, a hint of the way it had burned when last he stood facing this man. He heard Hermione suck in a breath and grab his arm. Ron scuttled away from Moody just as the rest of the classroom went deadly silent.

Moody studied Harry through his normal brown eye while the magical one rolled to focus on Hermione, then Ron, then the rest of the classroom. The brown one stayed on Harry, and it seemed to look right through him. Harry, recollecting himself, tried to stand unflinching before him, but this man had betrayed him. The last time he'd seen that face, it had been speaking of the Dark Lord's return and how much of a pleasure it would be to kill the nuisance that was Harry Potter.

Moody grunted like grumpy bear. "Sit down, all of you, and hold your tongues." Moody clumped past the three stock-still friends and headed for the head of the class. All the students milling around quickly found stools and obeyed the professor. Harry moved toward a table in the back, Hermione still attached to his arm, while Ron slunk over to a seat like a fearful dog.

At the blackboard Moody swung around and looked at the faces staring back at him. "I guess you're expecting some speech about how delightful it is to see all your smiling faces again."

No one was smiling. Moody was well aware of it.

"Well, you'll get no such thing. During the summer holiday I was working with the Aurors in the ministry on improving the _obliviate_ memory spell and took one right between the eyes." Moody pointed shortly to his forehead and his magical eye whirled. "Wiped the entire last term from my memory, so I don't remember a single one of you. End of story. As such, we're starting fresh this year, because you're still a lot of sorry wet children to me. And if we repeat lessons from last year, you'd do well to impress me with everything you already learned. If you impress me enough, we'll move on to a different lesson. If you never impress me, then we'll be working thrice as hard to fix into your skulls how important Defense Against the Dark Arts is. Understood?"

A meek chorus of consents went up from the students. Harry only stared at the professor. It had finally settled into his mind that this was the real Mad-Eye, not Barty under the effect of the polyjuice potion, but it was still disquieting to look on him after last year's events. He still remembered Moody asking about the graveyard, about what it was like standing in the presence of Voldemort…

Hermione was still holding on to his arm, and it was a grounding touch that kept Harry from feeling completely out of sorts. Instead he merely felt like he'd just got a jinxed broom under control. It wasn't bucking under him anymore, but his brain was still rattled.

Moody paced back and forth in front of the class, his strides hitting the floor in an uneven 'thump, clomp'. "This year above all others your aptitude in Defense Against the Dark Arts will be crucial. With the return of Voldemort," a few gasps and whimpers went up around the room, "your ability to master the spells, counterspells, and defenses to protect yourself against dark magic may soon be tested."

Harry could almost see the ripple of fear that swept through the class in a wave of stiff spines.

"You'll be getting classroom instruction in Defense Against the Dark Arts every day. You can expect extensive, difficult homework assignments and even harder exams. I'll hear no belly-aching about the workload, because the application of what you will learn is far more harrowing an ordeal than any essay I can assign you.

"You'll also have practical Defense Against the Dark Arts twice a week. You will practice the techniques, spells, and principals discussed in class during these additional lessons until you're chanting them in your sleep. Also, the practicals will be led by a different professor each time. Every professor in the school will instruct you, whether you have their class or not. They will teach you how their subject of expertise can be made to work in defense against the dark arts. Any questions?"

A lone Hufflepuff raised a tremulous, uncertain hand. "Yes?" Moody asked sharply.

The girl dropped her hand quickly, glanced around, then said, "Professor… so it's… it's true that You Know Who has returned?"

"Dumbledore said as much end of term, didn't he?"

The girl swallowed. "Well, yes, he did, but… well, since then there's been not a word about it in the _Daily Prophet_, and my mum and dad said…"

Moody scoffed in derision. "The _Daily Prophet_. Are you taking your information from the greatest wizard of our time and your headmaster to boot or that rumor-mongering rag?" When the girl seemed to go pale at the rebuff Moody turned to the whole class in general. "First lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts; never underestimate dark wizards or dark witches. You want to stay on top of danger, believe the worst. It'll save your life sooner than allowing yourself to be lulled by reassuring lies.

"And why hasn't there been word in the _Daily Prophet_ about You Know Who or the ministry's efforts to fight him? I'll tell you, but first, answer this. What do you have to do to get a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ delivered to you every morning?"

A silence reigned before Seamus answered cautiously, "Subscribe and pay the delivery owl a knut?"

"Exactly! And what would a Death Eater have to do to get the _Daily Prophet _delivered to him every morning? The exact same thing. Easy as that. You want the _Daily Prophet_ to detail every step of the ministry's war efforts against You Know Who? Why don't we just deliver our plans for defense and counterattack into the hands of You Know Who himself?"

"But they…" the girl from before sounded more and more like a mouse, "but the ministry _is_ doing something, trying to kill You Know Who?"

"They are and have been since the end of the Triwizard Tournament." Moody whirled on the rest of the class, "And what have all of _you_ done during the summer to prepare yourself to face this danger?"

Hermione's fingers dug deeper into Harry's bicep… his stronger, bigger bicep. Harry sat up straighter and he set aside his discomfort to attend to Moody as only someone who would not coddle them. These were the kinds of words only he and Hermione had braved to speak during the summer. Until now, it had seemed they had been the only ones who realized what it meant. This was what he'd needed since last night… affirmation, acknowledgement, action.

Moody's magical eye rested on every student in turn, like an inquisitor judging their misdeeds. "You all were told the truth, you knew the threat… so what have you done, eh? Let no news be good news, let your parents assure you there was no reason to worry and wave you off to bed with a kiss and a cookie? Well, worry. Worry a lot, because Voldemort is back." Moody scowled at them all, but Harry was oddly comforted by the gruff, blunt demeanor. "The last time You Know Who cut his swath of destruction through the magical world hundreds upon hundreds of witches and wizards died." Hermione's grip on Harry's arm became bruising. "My job is to hammer into your soft brains all I can, all I've learned from a career as an Auror dealing with dark magic every day, and _maybe_ if you pay attention to what I tell you, and to what your other professors tell you, you'll live to see the death of Voldemort instead of falling before his wrath."

A strange ferocity stirred in Harry at the words. He glanced at Hermione and saw a similar resolve, a similar stony determination, burning in her eyes. They'd known every word from Moody's mouth before he'd spoken it, they'd vowed it already over the summer to one another. For the first time since returning to Hogwarts, they felt they'd found a place where that end could be served.

"Now open your books," Moody barked, and everyone jerked and hurried to do as bade.

* * *

Moody's class was sobering. He did not allow anyone to believe that You Know Who's return was a fairy tale or a lie. For the hour they were in his class it was irrefutable fact. No one had the nerve to challenge Mad-Eye, and by the end of class, when students were filing out to go to lunch, Harry noticed the looks his classmates were turning his way were different. They were too recently cowed and lashed by Moody to still blame Harry for their disquiet. Moody put it back on Voldemort, where it belonged, and Harry detected an immediate shift in his peers. The looks cast his way now were sorrowful… Harry had been forced to face that monster of a wizard, as he had once been at the dark wizard's wand as a baby. Some were scared… it was an immense thing for a then-fourteen-year-old boy to best the darkest wizard of their lives for a second time. It was one time more than most witches and wizards had the opportunity to do. Some students could not grapple with the idea that Harry had managed to survive. Others, though far fewer, seemed almost grateful to him. His escape meant there was warning of the danger simmering in the dark shadows of their world. They were allotted this time to prepare and study and work their asses off because Harry had brought them word of Voldemort's return. The memory of Cedric's death, his absence in the halls this term, was a final seal of veracity and reality on the issue. Maybe they could believe it a lie, but that left a student's body to explain. As long as they were under Moody's watch, it was useless to argue. It was Voldemort's doing, and given half the chance he'd do it again to everyone in the room.

"Potter," Moody called before Harry and his friends could leave. Harry looked toward the professor, at Hermione and Ron, then ticked his head in silent direction and moved toward the front of the classroom. Hermione and Ron followed as the room emptied.

Moody was directing the erasers to clean the board and turned to Harry... and set a heavy scowl upon his face when he saw Hermione and Ron. With a flick of his wand the classroom door slammed shut and closed the four of them in alone together. Only then did the professor speak. "So I assume you two already know?" he spoke to Ron and Hermione directly.

Ron shrank back a little from Moody, but Hermione stood at Harry's side, chin up in a show of strength, and she said, "About Barty Crouch Junior? Yes, we do."

Moody grunted and sat down on the edge of his desk. "Dumbledore told me to expect as much from Potter to tell you two."

Harry was not about to apologize for that. "You lied."

Moody eyed Harry closely. It was almost hard for Harry to remember at all times that this gruff, surly Auror was not the same one he'd dealt with so extensively last year. Barty Junior had done his research on mannerisms and demeanor.

"I did. And do you know why?"

Harry hesitated. It was Hermione beside him who answered, "If the students found out about Barty Junior last year, if they knew it had been him and not you, they'd doubt you. They'd question you all the time, because they'd believed what they thought was you once, and it had been a lie."

Moody let out a dry, cackling bark of a laugh. "Well, now, Dumbledore told me to expect you to be sharp as a tack. You're right. And for that reason, they should continue to believe I was _obliviated_." Moody reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask. Harry's eyes went immediately to the container and he regarded it suspiciously. Last year, it had been polyjuice potion, the instrument of Barty's ruse that buffaloed them all.

Moody saw Harry's attentiveness. "I like your caution, Potter. Here," he handed the flask to him. "Take a swallow, see if you turn into me."

Harry took the flask even as Hermione cast him a startled look. It was a fair bet that Moody was toting around a nip of alcohol, and for him to offer it to a student…

Harry met Moody eye to eye before putting the flask to his lips and tipping it back. A splash of firewhiskey slammed into the back of his throat and his eyes watered but he fought to keep from coughing. He swallowed and stoically handed the flask back.

Moody matched Harry's gaze, unblinking and steady. A moment of import passed wordlessly between them, thick and wrought with tension, but very significant. And for Harry, necessary for him to ever trust Mad-Eye again.

Finally, Moody nodded, "Feeling yourself?"

Harry didn't glance down at himself but simply nodded. He knew he wouldn't need to look if it had been polyjuice potion. One didn't transform from drinking polyjuice potion without realizing it.

Moody had passed the test.

Moody took a swig himself and capped the flask, "Yeah, Dumbledore told me you three had taken polyjuice potion before. Gutsy. And for a trio of second years, too. I hope you lot will give me just as much grief, though I'll hardly call that kind of ingenuity 'grief'.

"I'll also expect you all to keep quiet about Barty Junior."

"We will," Hermione answered for them. Ron gave a wordless nod and Harry merely looked Moody straight in the eye.

Moody studied each of them, both with his normal eye and his magical one, then he grunted and rose from his desk. "I understand whenever there's trouble you three tend to be in the thick of it." Moody turned a penetrating look on all of them. "I won't harp on you for that. Sometimes you find trouble," he glanced at Harry, "and sometimes trouble has a habit of finding you. Remember I'm here to teach you how to get yourselves out of trouble. I'm not a McGonagall or a Flitwick or even an Albus Dumbledore. I'm not here to tell you to hole up safe in your beds and pretend you can live your lives without coming across danger or that you should even try. Sometimes risk is inevitable, sometimes it's part of what makes life worthwhile. Just keep me in mind if you ever find yourself needing help getting out of danger, however you may have stumbled into it."

"We'll remember, Professor," Hermione answered.

"Then off to the Great Hall with you, students weak from hunger won't do any of your teachers a bit of good."

* * *

In the Gryffindor common room late that evening, Harry and Ron were sitting before the fire with their History of Magic homework in front of them. Harry was in the armchair to the side of the hearth while Ron was sitting in the middle of the couch directly across from the fireplace, his parchment on one side of him and his book on the other. In his lap were his notes from last year, woefully spotty and unhelpful but Ron was desperate enough to keep hunting for notes he had not taken. Both boys had their robes and ties draped over the back of the furniture, their collars unbuttoned and shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. It was getting late and their fellow Gryffindors were beginning to trudge up the stairs to their beds. Harry was halfway done with his History of Magic assignment, the paper's seemingly fated state since the beginning of summer. Ron, on the other hand, had not even started and was fretting over the hour. They had History of Magic first thing the next morning and their summer assignments would be due at the start of class.

"Bollocks," Ron whined as he flipped through his sparse notes furiously. "I just don't know, Harry, this is stupid anyway. Who needs History of Magic? What with You Know Who back, well, you'd think we could all focus on the present, right? So who needs history? This assignment is pointless."

Harry looked up from his partially-finished scroll. "Somehow I don't think a teacher who's a ghost will appreciate the suggestion that we should only worry about the present. Binns might take it a bit personally."

Ron grabbed at his hair and scowled viciously at his parchment. When he brought his hand away his hair was sticking up in wild orange tufts to match his frenzied state of mind. "I just can't be bothered to think about the house elf pandemic of 1284 with the dark wizard running around on the loose." He leaned about against the cushions of the couch and closed his eyes with a frustrated sigh. Harry shook his head and returned to his essay. He wasn't quite to the point of matching Ron's disgust with the assignment, but sleep was starting to look very appealing and he'd just as soon finish his work and get up to bed.

"Oh, Harry, _really_, and you had all summer…"

Harry looked up and saw Hermione standing near the far end of the couch. Her day robes had been shucked and she wore the pleated skirt and sweater set that went under her regular robes. In Harry's opinion, much nicer than her Hogwarts robes. She was frowning at Harry's last-minute homework with an expression as though she took Harry's failure to finish all his work on time as her own personal short-coming.

At Hermione's voice, Ron jumped and sat up, his hair still a fright. "Her-Hermione… hey! You… you want to sit next to me?"

Hermione's face quirked strangely. "Umm… okay."

Ron hurriedly moved his book over to the other cushion, crushing his barely-begun History of Magic assignment and looking up at Hermione eagerly.

Hermione, with a quick, questioning look at Harry, sat down and folded her legs beneath her. She examined the scene before her, regarded Ron's rather frazzled if somewhat goofy appearance, and she seemed to address the greater need first. "How's the homework coming along, Ron?"

Ron's face fell. "Oh, you have _got_ to help me, Hermione. I'm sure to fail if you don't."

"Can't be all that bad, let me see what you've got so far."

Ron pulled his crumpled parchment from beneath his book and handed it to her. Hermione took it, looked at the paper, and her eyes went wide. "RON! All you have is _your name_?!"

"I'm not smart like you!" Ron practically wailed.

"But you didn't work on this at all the entire summer?!"

"Well, no, I… did I mention there were dragons?"

"What has that got to do with…" Hermione stopped, visibly tried to calm herself, then she handed the paper with Ron's name written across the top. Harry had stopped his work to watch, unable to deny a combination of both amusement and empathy on Ron's behalf.

"_Please_, Hermione, you have to help me. You helped Harry!"

Hermione looked toward Harry, seemed on the verge of commenting on Harry's own unfinished work, then she stood abruptly from the couch and walked off, headed toward the girls' tower stairs. Ron watched her leave with undeniable panic in his eyes. "Where's she… hey, Hermione! You're… you're coming back, right? Hermione!" Ron turned to Harry. "She'll be right back, right?"

Harry shrugged.

Ron glowered at Harry's unconcern for Ron's perilous academic future. "It's not fair, you know, you had her helping you all summer with yours."

"Yeah, and you took the mickey out of her for it every chance you got, so don't go playing the innocent prat on that one." Harry hadn't expected his retort to be quite so harsh… he'd _intended_ it teasingly. It hadn't come out that way.

Ron, too, seemed taken aback by Harry's brusque comment. He gaped at Harry a moment, then frowned angrily. "Are you on about that again?"

"Just forget it, Ron, I'm just worried about getting my own history assignment done here." A lie, Harry was only marginally worried about his homework, he could probably turn it in as is and scrape out a passing grade, but Ron would understand homework anxiety, and it just might kick them back into the same camp.

It seemed to work. "Oh, right, sorry. Real ugly what homework does to a bloke, isn't it?"

"Sure," Harry mumbled and wrote a few more lines on his scroll.

Hermione returned with the heavy black spells book Harry had come to know well clutched to her chest. When she neared the couch she pulled out a notebook that had been hidden from view, sandwiched between the large book and her chest. "Here, Ron," she sat down again beside him and handed him the notebook while she set the spells book in her lap. "You can use my notes from last year."

Ron grabbed the notebook as a drowning man would a flotation device. "Thank you, Hermione! You're the greatest, really, best friend a guy could ask for. A life-safer, this one, Harry." Ron turned to Harry on the last.

"Yep," Harry answered and winked at Hermione. Hermione blushed and quickly returned her attention to Ron. "Now, I'll not be bailing you out like this again, so you best finish your homework _before_ the last minute. And start paying attention in class, I mean it."

"I will, I promise. You're wonderful, Hermione." Ron began to trawl through pages and pages of History of Magic notes in Hermione's neat, precise handwriting.

Hermione looked across at Harry and glanced at his scroll unfurling on his lap. "What about you, Harry. Do you need any help?"

"No, I think I'll be all right finishing up. You've already helped me with most of it, anyway."

Hermione smiled, cast a sidelong look at a rabidly reading Ron, and as she sat there her expression grew serious. She ran her fingers absently over the spine of the book, the along the edges of the cover. After a pause she asked Harry, "Think you could spare a few minutes?"

Harry set his quill and parchment aside. "Yeah. What do you need?"

Ron looked up from his hunt for information, curiosity mildly piqued.

Hermione was only too aware of Ron's attention to their conversation and it made her hesitate. She chewed on her bottom lip a second. "Could you come with me?"

"Want me to come along, too?" Ron asked merrily, in much better spirits after procuring Hermione's notes.

"No, Ron… you, um… you should work on that essay. Harry?" Hermione gathered the book close to her chest, stood, and gestured for him to follow. Harry got up from the armchair and moved after Hermione. Ron watched after them, a disconcerted expression on his face.

Hermione led Harry to a study table on the opposite end of the common room from the fireplace where Ron was sitting. She turned and sat down on the table, her feet perched on a chair and book in her lap, and Harry stood facing her expectantly. Hermione looked up at him, looked past him to where Ron was watching them both closely, and with a frown she reached forward and grabbed Harry's arm. She tugged. Harry, baffled but trusting, moved a step to the side to stand directly in front of Hermione. When he was blocking Ron's sight of whatever Hermione would do, she let Harry's arm go, withdrew her wand, and cast a _silencio_ around the two of them.

Only when that was done did Hermione speak to the reason she had pulled him aside. Then she leaned fractionally closer, despite the _silencio_, "I need to give you this." She slipped her hand between the pages of the heavy book and withdrew a small piece of paper. Harry took it and read one of the longer spells he'd seen, penned in Hermione's well-familiar hand.

"You'll need to study this," Hermione whispered, leaning in even closer to lower her voice, even if it wasn't really necessary. She leaned so close Harry could smell that damnably lovely shampoo of hers, and her words left brushes of warm air on his hands. "This is the incantation you'll have to say for the change."

Harry glanced down at the parchment. "Well, couldn't I just read it over a few times then take this with me when we… you know?"

Hermione shook her head. "It needs to be learned. You have to know this by rote, because this is the same spell, the latter half of it anyway, that will change you back. It has to be readily recalled even when you're mind has become that of your animagus form. If it's not set strongly in your mind, well… might be a spot of trouble turning into a human again. Once you've made the change the first time your body learns how to do it, you know, once it's been shown how, but the first time each way you have to know the incantation."

"Right, got it. Very important. I'll learn it." Harry started to slip it into his pocket but stopped short and remembered Ron a few feet away, quite possibly watching them.

"Um… Hermione?"

Hermione looked up at him, her face shadowed and softened from the low lighting of the room. "Yes?"

"Err… uh, Ron. He might… well, what if he asks why you needed me?"

Hermione's mouth opened a moment, her lips hanging slightly parted as she thought, then she flushed ever so faintly and looked back down at the book in her hands. "Well, I suppose…" she opened the book again and began to flip through the pages. The book readily fell open where a bookmark had been placed. When Hermione pulled it from the pages, Harry realized it was not actually a bookmark. Hermione took out a wizard picture. Even upside down, Harry recognized the photo he'd seen on Hermione's bureau… him and her at the Yule Ball last term.

He blinked, surprised, and looked up at Hermione's face. She was looking down at the picture, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and blushed. It painted her face with warmth and vulnerability, an oddly provocative combination that made Harry's insides squirm. Not quite a stomach flip, but a kissing cousin. "I went to Colin this afternoon after classes, while you and Ron were down at the Quidditch pitch having a bit of fun… I wanted to see if he still had the negative of this picture. I wanted another copy to keep at school." Hermione seemed to almost reluctantly extend it toward him, "Here… you can tell Ron I thought you might be embarrassed if I gave it to you in front of him."

Harry took the picture and looked down at their likenesses, still as full of smiles and still looking as suspiciously the couple with their arms around one another as they had in Hermione's room. Harry looked surreptitiously at Hermione. "You were going to, what, just have this on your nightstand?" It made him feel a little… tingly in the stomach to think of Hermione having their picture just out on her nightstand like that. Her roommates would see it.

Hermione bit her lip. "Oh, well… I hadn't thought to that part yet, I just knew… well, it's really about the only picture of just us, you know, and I wanted… I thought..." Hermione looked on the borderline of mortified.

"Well, it _is_ a good picture of us," he said, sparing her the embarrassment.

Hermione sighed. "It really is."

Harry looked a moment at the photograph, him and Hermione smiling and happy on the steps of Hogwarts main hall. It was the way he'd want to remember them, if and when times got hard. And this year, it seemed those hard times would be soon upon them. In a second, he realized he wanted to have the picture for real, not just slip it back to Hermione when Ron wasn't looking. "May I actually keep it?" he asked. "I could ask Colin to make you another one."

Hermione smiled up at him, and she didn't look as reluctant as he'd expected her to considering the trouble she'd gone to to get it. "Of course you can. I'll bother Colin about another one, you needn't worry about it."

Harry smiled back at her. "Thanks."

Hermione nodded, closed the book, and stood. Harry moved back half a step but not as far as he could have. When Hermione rose from the table she was brought to stand inches from Harry. The height difference became all the more obvious. "Well, I'll be off to bed. If you're sure you don't need any help with your homework?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I'm almost done, I can take care of the rest on my own."

Hermione nodded, "Then good night, Harry."

"Night, Mione."

Hermione smiled at him, radiant and private all at once, and with a parting flick of her wand she neutralized the _silencio_ and walked off. Harry watched her go then turned back to Ron and the fire. He slipped both picture and spell into his slacks pocket and returned to his friend.

Ron was watching Harry critically. Harry took up his homework again and set to the last of his essay, paying no heed to Ron's pointed stare.

"Well?" Ron asked.

Harry looked up and met Ron's narrowed eyes. "What?"

Ron looked toward the girls' dorm. "What was all that about, then?"

"Oh, Hermione had something she wanted to give me."

"What was it?" Ron asked quickly.

Harry had prepared the cover story on his way back to the fire, but the stern tone in Ron's voice woke a reciprocal bristle in Harry. "Maybe it was private, did you think of that?"

Ron's brow furrowed. "What could Hermione have to give you that she couldn't show me?"

Harry matched Ron's glower. It felt an awful lot like the first half of last term, when Ron had believed Harry put his name in the Goblet of Fire. It unnerved Harry and made him more than a bit annoyed with Ron.

"If it was something she didn't want to show you, then it wouldn't be any of your business, would it?" Despite his words, Harry fished into his pocket and pulled out the picture of him and Hermione. "But since you're so curious, that's what she wanted to give me." Harry tossed it toward Ron. Ron scrambled to catch the picture and looked down at it. His expression went from angry to something else… unreadable and from the looks of it quite nearly painful.

"She wanted me to have it, but after the fiasco between you two at the Yule Ball she thought maybe it would make you feel uncomfortable to be reminded of that stupid dance. Since she ended up in tears because of you and all."

Ron gulped and hung his head. When he returned the photograph, he was visibly brought down a notch. Harry reclaimed the picture and watched Ron's reaction closely, not sure why he'd lashed out but feeling the response from Ron would be important.

Ron rubbed his hands over his face. "Sorry," he muttered, "guess this assignment's making us both a little cross."

"Yeah, guess so."

"Maybe I should just throw in the towel and call it a night." Ron moved to put away his things, Hermione's notes included.

"No, finish," Harry packed away his own things, "Hermione will have a fit if you don't finish that essay now that she's helped you out on it. I'm done anyway." He could throw together a two or three sentence ending on his essay in the morning and manage a pass on the assignment. It seemed a small price to pay to keep the peace with Ron.

Ron sighed but seemed resigned to Harry's recommendation. "Suppose you're right. I'll see you in the morning, Harry."

"Night," Harry said and trudged up the stairs to the dorm room, leaving Ron alone by the fire sweating over his History of Magic homework.


	26. Chapter 26

"I don't…" Ron broke off his sentence to yawn as the class of fifth year Gryffindors poured out of the green house, "don't believe it. Who would have thought _herbology_ could ever be used to defend against the dark arts?"

The end of their second day of classes had been their first Defense Against the Dark Arts practical, led by Professor Sprout. No one had known quite what to expect, nor how much to expect from Professor Sprout in the area of dark art defense, but to their amazement they discovered there were many ways to use plants both offensively and defensively. And their portly herbology professor was a plethora of knowledge on both.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were walking abreast as they all headed back toward the castle, their classmates a black-robed pack moving in the same direction on all sides of them.

"I think it's great," came Neville's voice as he caught up to them, clearly having heard Ron's comment. "Herbology as a defense against the dark arts! I might actually have some hope of living."

"I have to admit," Harry added as Ron gave another gape-jaw yawn, "I didn't really expect herbology to be of much use in defense against the dark arts."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Hermione mused aloud at Harry's left as she rearranged the bag strap over her shoulder. "Professor Sprout knew _so much_ about using plants as _weapons_…"

"Bit scary," Neville confessed.

"Well, you know, before our time, they were around to actually have to fight Death Eaters and You Know Who with everything they had. Would make them pretty bloody good at it," Ron said lowly.

"Kind of hard to imagine that it was people our parents' age who fought You Know Who the first time, when it seems so much farther away than… oh," Hermione stopped talking and looked regretfully toward Harry.

Harry, for his part, watched where he placed his feet on their trek back to the castle and consciously refrained from looking up. "Not so far away," he said in a near whisper.

"No," Neville mumbled in agreement.

"What do you suppose Trelawney will have for her go at Defense practical?" Ron asked with a snicker.

"Complete and utter rubbish," Hermione retorted as they entered the castle and headed toward the Gryffindor tower.

"Maybe she'll surprise you, too," Neville offered in a small voice.

"If she managed to predict the weather tomorrow I'd have a stroke from shock. Honestly, we'd be better off with a double lesson from Moody or Snape."

"Ugh!" Ron protested, "you _want_ more lessons with Snape? Are you completely touched in the head?"

"He'll know a lot more about Defense Against the Dark Arts than that old bat Trelawney. Vigilance," Hermione spoke the last to the fat lady portrait.

"No need to be brusque about it, young lady," she scolded as she swung open.

Harry picked up the conversation they'd been having as though the painting had not spoken. "And he's better at dark arts for a very good reason."

"Or bad reason, however you want to look at it," Ron quipped.

Hermione grunted and dropped her bag on to the couch end. Neville made for the boys' dorm room while Ron let his bag fall on the floor where he stood, walked around to the front of the couch, and dropped flat on his back with a groan. He'd been up late last night, though neither Harry nor Hermione knew exactly how late, but in History of Magic that morning he'd had a complete (if messy) essay to turn in to Binns. He'd also had an apology for Hermione. From her expression, she didn't seem to quite believe what she was hearing as Ron said he was sorry for upsetting her last year at the Yule Ball. In whispered confidence, Hermione told Harry she suspected it was the sleep deprivation.

Hermione glanced at Ron spread out on the couch then looked at her watch. "Harry… I think we have time for a run before dinner if you're up for it."

"Run? Why do that?" Ron asked from his prone position.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Harry answered. He could do with a bit of physical exertion if truth be told. He'd grown conditioned to it at Hermione's and had actually begun to feel a bit antsy with pent up energy without some kind of outlet since returning to Hogwarts.

"It does?" Ron looked between his two friends as though they were suggesting a community bath with the Slytherins.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I told you Harry and I took up exercising over the holiday to build up a bit. Wouldn't make sense to slack off just because we're back in classes, would it?"

"Right." Ron sat up and looked between Harry and Hermione with a contemplative expression on his face. He seemed to give both Harry and Hermione an assessing glance that might have made Harry both uncomfortable and ruffled, respectively, if he didn't know Ron so well. "Maybe I ought to come along too, you think?"

Harry and Hermione looked at one another, shared an expression of ambivalence, and shrugged practically in unison. Hermione answered, "Come along if you like. I'll meet you both back here in five minutes." She scooped up her bag, turned, and hurried up the stairs.

Ron seemed to drag himself off the couch, nearly as reluctant as though he were heading off to sit an exam. "You don't have to come if you don't want to, Ron," Harry said.

"No, no, I want to. I mean, it's really done you two a load of good, and besides, the three of us do everything together, right?"

"Right," Harry replied as though on autopilot and preceded Ron up the stairs, their bags slung over their shoulders.

In the dorm, they walked into the middle of a conversation between Dean and Seamus.

"… you'd turn on the Canons because of a _girl_," Dean said with disgust.

"A bloody _hot_ girl." When Seamus saw Harry and Ron come in, he launched into them. "Ron! You've seen the new chaser for the Falmouth Falcons, haven't you?"

"You mean Ledora Paltry? _Have _I! She's a real looker, that one."

"See?" Seamus gestured to Ron emphatically. Harry side-stepped the lot of them and opened his trunk. He had to dig a bit to find his black track pants and old T-shirt of Dudley's with the sleeves cut off.

"Yeah, but would you root for the Falcons as opposed to the Canons just because of some ruddy girl?" Dean challenged.

"You're missing the point of it, Dean. She's not just 'some ruddy girl'. It's a _bloody hot_ girl, and you know, those girl Quidditch players… well, Harry gets that, don't you, Harry?"

Harry had toed off his shoes and began to shrug out of his robes when he was drawn into the conversation. "What's that?"

"Cho Chang. Have a thing for her, don't you?"

Harry scowled and tossed his robes on the bed. He undid his tie and gave a lop-sided shrug.

"Oh, come on, you were a mess over her last year. Not that I blame you in the least for it; I wouldn't mind getting in on some of that. It's that whole girl Quidditch player thing, isn't it?"

"What about them?" Neville asked, perplexed.

Seamus grinned wolfishly. "Well, a girl like that, she's not going to be some dainty little thing like most. A girl who'll hit a bludger right for your head will also be the type to start a good snog."

Dean snorted. "Like you know anything about snogging."

"I've snogged more than you have, you twit." Seamus threw a pillow at Dean, who ducked it quickly. Harry shed his shirt with very little attention paid to the discussion, and projectiles, flying about the room around him.

"Couldn't have anything to do with the fact Cho's just plain hot, Quidditch player or not?" Dean asked.

Seamus sounded genuinely surprised. "Didn't know you fancied her."

"I never knew that _you_ did."

"I don't have to fancy her to know she's hot."

Harry dropped his trousers and slipped on the track pants, listening to the ongoing conversation with only half an ear.

"Not like she's the only hot girl at Hogwarts I've noticed, either."

"Yeah, and who else have you noticed, then?"

Seamus snickered. "Hermione Granger, for one."

"_Hermione_?!" Dean choked.

"Have you bloody _seen_ her this year? She's definitely outgrown that ugly duckling phase. You know, next to Quidditch players, they say the bookworms are real steamy snoggers, all that reading up they do on it. I'll bet Hermione—"

"Back off." Harry turned to level a glare at Seamus.

Seamus blinked, startled by the venom in Harry's eyes and words. "Relax, Harry, it's just a bit of fun."

"Have your fun, but leave Hermione out of it," Harry pulled on his shirt and continued to stare down Seamus.

"She's our _friend_, you git," Ron threw in reproachfully.

"But I just meant that…" Seamus started to argue, but Harry took a step forward and Seamus jumped back as though scalded. "_Okay_, I'm sorry, I won't talk about Hermione anymore. Bloody hell, Harry, you'd think she was your _girlfriend_ or something."

"Don't be stupid," Ron spat. "Let's go, Harry, Hermione's waiting for us."

Hermione was indeed in the common room waiting for them, garbed in her usual running attire. She had on a white tank top and gray exercise pants with pink stripes running down the outside of both legs. Her hair was pulled back in a curly ponytail. Harry was used to seeing Hermione dressed that way, but Ron did a fair bit of goggling when they reached the common room and she turned to them.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked when she got a look at Harry's face.

Harry shook his head and knelt to put on his trainers. "Nothing. Seamus was being a bastard."

Hermione cocked her head and glanced at Ron for an explanation. Ron was a gaping wasteland, so she turned her attention back to Harry. However, Harry would say nothing more on the subject. He stood from tying his shoes and put a hand on Hermione's elbow to direct her toward the portrait hole.

"Harry…" Hermione began again and looked up into his face. She stopped with a frown when she saw the look on his face and chose to let it go. Harry dropped her elbow but continued to walk closely at her side.

Once outside and standing in the open courtyard, Harry and Hermione began stretching. Ron hung back and watched, looking a bit out of place in his shorts and lounge shirt idly while Harry and Hermione rotated through a well-practiced series of leg, arm, and back stretches. They'd done it so many times over the summer they didn't need to make conversation to fill the silence; it had long ago ceased being uncomfortable. A few passing students snickered at the pair of them bending and extending, and it made Ron shuffle uneasily.

"You'd best stretch, Ron, or you're liable to pull something," Hermione suggested.

"Oh, um… you know, I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Suit yourself." She offset to address both Ron and Harry. "Here's what I was thinking, we could start off toward the Black Lake, turn left, and make a round of the perimeter of Hogwarts from there."

Harry calculated the distance in his head. "Sounds good to me."

"Uh, wa… wait, _all_ the way around Hogwarts?" Ron yelped.

Hermione tried not to smile. "Well, we'll see." She turned to Harry and Ron caught on they were about to go and scurried up to take up position on Hermione's other side.

The three of them set off at a steady jog toward the Black Lake, keeping pace and staying in a line shoulder-to-shoulder. They turned a few heads as they passed, not often did students take to running around the grounds when it wasn't to make it to class on time; it made the tips of Ron's ears turn red, but Harry and Hermione were oblivious. They had a rhythm they fell into when they ran, with steps matched and attention locked forward; their worlds narrowed to the experience of the run. It was almost a different state of mind, and there was no room for watching classmates.

Ron kept up well enough all the way to the shores of the Black Lake, but not long after they'd made a left and started their circuit around the school his loud breathing was breaking into even Harry and Hermione's singular focus on their task. Ron, just barely, started to fall back, and unspoken Harry and Hermione slowed to stay with him.

Finally, Ron staggered to a stop, gasping for breath, face beet red. "Wait… wait." He braced his hands on his knees and sucked in air. Harry and Hermione stopped and turned to Ron.

"You all right, Ron?" Harry asked.

Ron shook his head but couldn't speak, held up a hand to still them, then after a few heaving breaths said, "Just… can't go on."

Hermione stepped closer, "You don't look so good. You sure you're all right?"

Ron tried to straighten, winced, and clutched his side. He grimaced, "I don't think… I'm made for… this running… business. Don't tell me… you two… actually… _enjoy_ this."

Hermione and Harry, their breathing only slightly accelerated and neither of them having yet broken a sweat, looked at one another. They both smiled at the same time. Harry was the one to answer, "Well, yeah, we do. Kind of a rush."

Ron gaped at Harry like he'd confessed to a passing interest in cross-dressing.

Hermione jumped in, "But we didn't like it right off. At first we were…" the words 'just like you' were nearly off the tip of her tongue, but she stopped and her brow crinkled as she studied their friend, wheezing, sweating, and cramping. She changed direction mid-stream, "we weren't nearly so enamored of it. It took a bit. No one's great the first time out. Takes some time to start having fun."

"_Fun_?!" Ron shook his head and wiped his sopping forehead with his forearm. 'Well, I think I've had enough _fun_ for today. I'm heading back inside to do something a bit more _fun_… like homework; you two go on without me."

"You sure, Ron?" Harry asked.

Ron nodded vigorously. "_Very_ sure. I'll catch up with you two at dinner."

Harry and Hermione looked at one another, shrugged, and in synch turned and took off again. Ron's mouth hung open when they didn't leave at the leisurely pace the three of them had been keeping previously… Harry and Hermione set off at twice that speed.

"Those _gits_," Ron muttered and started back toward the castle.

* * *

When next Ron saw Harry, it was when his best friend sat down across from him at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall just before the start of dinner. Ron, combating fatigue and drowsiness the whole way, had actually managed to do his Charms homework while Harry and Hermione were out circling the castle. For once, he considered homework a better use of his time.

Harry was back in his school robes, though he'd clearly showered after coming in from his run. Ron begrudged him how energized and refreshed Harry looked from the work-out, whereas Ron had discovered Hermione had been right about the importance of stretching.

"Harry!" Ginny came bounding up to where they sat, her long red hair free for once, and took the vacant spot next to Harry. "Saw you out on your run a while ago. Nice shirt."

Harry fidgeted. "Huh… it was a tatty old hand-me-down of my cousin's."

"Yes, but you wore it well," Ginny countered with a wink.

Harry looked toward Ron for back-up fending off Ginny, but Ron wasn't feeling particularly charitable. Not for the first time, Harry had shown him up well and good. And in front of Hermione, too. Harry could squirm a bit.

"Well, uh… thanks, I guess," Harry said haltingly. He glanced toward Ginny with an uneasy expression on his face, looked past her shoulder, and brightened. "Hermione!"

Hermione, back in her robes and also fresh from a shower of her own, came up and stood beside the table next to her friends. "Hey, Harry," Hermione looked down at Ginny sitting in the spot next to Harry. "Ginny." Hermione's greeting to Ginny was fractionally cooler than her hello to Harry.

To her credit, Ginny took hints well. "I'll leave you three to it, then," she said, got up from the table, and left to join her same-year friends.

Hermione sat down in the place Ginny had vacated. Harry was visibly relieved. "Thanks, Hermione."

Hermione shifted a little closer to Harry, almost absently as she frowned, "For what?"

"Ginny was funning with him," Ron replied, feeling in a better mood after watching Harry suffer Ginny's twisted sense of humor. His mood was also improved by Hermione's arrival.

Harry groaned. "I almost liked it better when she ran away every time I said hi to her. Less awkward for me, at least."

Ron laughed. "Ginny's got a streak in her. Mum figures it comes from growing up the only girl with so many brothers."

"Wonder what she's playing at," Harry mused and pursed his lips in intense thought.

Hermione, her head canted, watched Harry critically, then threw a glance down the table to the fourth years. Ginny was chatting and giggling with her friends. Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"Who knows," Ron said with a shrug, "my sister's barking half the time, if you ask me. I love her and all, but the girl's harder to figure than even _Hermione_."

Hermione looked quickly at Ron and glowered.

Ron blinked and sat back shortly. "Uh… sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean that in a _bad_ way."

"No, I'm sure you meant barking in a good way."

Ron looked like a cornered animal.

Harry intervened. "Just like Ron's a prat, but in a good way, right?"

Ron looked torn between affronted and being too concerned about Hermione's wrath to take his eyes off her.

Hermione, to Ron's immeasurable relief, smiled then. "Right."

They were spared any further filler conversation when dinner appeared on the table before them, platters and plates and bowls of delicious food. Ron tucked in as though he'd not eaten in days. Harry and Hermione followed his example, but in moderation.


	27. Chapter 27

In the common room after dinner, most students set to working on their assignments. Ron had appropriated the couch first thing back from the Great Hall, spread out to the point where no one else could even think of sharing it with him, and promptly fell asleep. His eventual snoring drove several of the studying Gryffindors up to their dorms or off to the library looking for a quiet place to study. Harry was at the table working on Potions, by now used to Ron's sawing snores and adept at tuning them out.

A hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder, and Harry knew it was Hermione before she even spoke by the tickle of her hair on his neck and the soft smell of her when she leaned close to whisper in his ear. "Are you busy, Harry?"

Harry half-turned in his seat to look at her, his quill paused and poised over his Potions assignment. Hermione took her hand from Harry's shoulder and used it to shift the strap of her bookbag. "I thought you were in the library," he said in a low voice, mindful of Ron sleeping a few feet away.

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip. "Not exactly." She looked quickly to either side to see if anyone was close enough to hear.

Harry laid his quill down. Hermione being sneaky always got his attention.

"Could you come with me? We need to talk," she said with a glance in Ron's direction to make sure he'd not heard.

Harry nodded, gathered up his things, and stood from the table.

Hermione led him out of the common room and through the halls of the castle without a word of explanation as to where they were going. She was in her 'Hermione on a mission' mode, and Harry knew better than to try and stand in her way. He held his peace and followed her.

He hesitated only a heartbeat when Hermione pushed her way into the girls' second floor bathroom before following her inside. The deserted loo looked almost completely unchanged from the last time Harry had been inside it. He gave the sinks a wary look, even though he knew the portal to the Chamber of Secrets wouldn't open without a command in parseltongue. Just knowing it was there was enough to give him the creeps.

Hermione didn't appear to share any of his disquieted associations with the bathroom. Her focus was entirely elsewhere. She turned to Harry the moment they were alone inside the loo and finally launched into the explanation for their sojourn. "I wasn't in the library; I was getting the things we would need to start the potion for our 'project'." She took the bag from her shoulder and set it on the edge of the nearest sink to dig through the contents. Harry frowned, walked over, and took the bag off the basin. Hermione followed where it went, her hands buried inside, and seemed to pay no mind to why Harry was moving it. Harry sat down on the floor and Hermione followed suit, the bag presently on the tile between them.

"I thought it would be best if I worked on the potion on my own in the evenings," Hermione said as she pulled out the black spell book, set it in her lap, and turned to the well-read chapter. "Ron might get suspicious if you and I continually sneak off without him."

Harry leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, you're probably right about that. Sure you don't mind doing it by yourself, though?"

Hermione shook her head and reached back into the bag to pull out a jar of mysterious blue liquid. "I'm the one who's been studying up on how to do it, anyway. I expect it might go faster if I'm just left to work. What you'll need to do is keep Ron distracted and throw him off if he starts suspecting we're up to anything.

"Now, this potion doesn't require the same maturation time that the polyjuice did. It's complicated, to be sure, but not nearly as delicate or time-sensitive. I'm certain I can have it done by the time of the full moon."

"Which will be when, exactly?" Harry asked, hoping he wasn't about to get a lecture for not researching it himself in his astronomy book.

"In two weeks, roughly."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "You can have the potion done by then?"

Hermione nodded. "That doesn't leave a great deal of time for you to learn that incantation I gave you, Harry. You'll need to give it top priority."

"I've already been studying it, between classes and during most of History of Magic."

"Harry!" Hermione scolded.

Harry held out his hands defensively. "Hey, do you want me to know it or don't you?"

Hermione pressed her lips tightly together and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, yes, I suppose this is rather more important than History of Magic. Fine then, I'll not trouble you about it anymore; if you end up needing help with your History of Magic because you've been memorizing that spell, you come to me."

"I always do."

Hermione blushed momentarily and looked back down at the book in her lap. Harry smirked, but not unkindly, as he watched her.

"I… uh," Hermione cleared her throat and looked back up at him, her complexion, for the most part, back to normal, "I'll need your tokens."

Harry reached into his pocket and withdrew the marble bag that he carried with him at all times. It was bulky and oddly shaped from the items within. After the entirety of the summer, it was almost a comforting constant weight in his pocket. He passed the bag to her.

"Thanks," Hermione said and placed his marble bag inside her bookbag. "The tokens will have to be soaked in the potion. It should draw out the magic in the objects, stabilize the link, and bind the tokens together. That connection will be very important for the next phase of the process. But this is straight potions, nothing so intricate or difficult as the tokening itself, so I don't expect there to be any trouble.

"If you happen to token anything else between now and the full moon, still take it. Remember what Kimmy told us, you must never ignore a token. Take it and bring it to me and I'll add it to the potion."

"All right," Harry answered, "what should we do if—" Harry was cut off mid-sentence when a bubbling gurgle came from the last stall of the girls' bathroom. Harry looked quickly in that direction while Hermione slammed shut the spell book in her lap.

"Myrtle?" Hermione called out after a silence listening to the burble. "Is that you?"

The bubbling intensified… soon followed by a giggle. Moaning Myrtle came floating out of the fourth stall. She turned to face them and looked first at Harry. And smiled. "Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Mrytle," Harry said uncomfortably, all too conscious of the fact that the last time he'd seen Mrytle he'd been starkers.

Apparently, neither had she forgotten from the lascivious, wicked grin that lit her usually dour, glum expression.

"Umm… how long have you been here?" Hermione asked cautiously.

Myrtle floated lazily closer, twirling one pigtail around an incorporeal finger. "Long enough to know the pair of you are up to something you're not allowed to be doing." She peered at the bag and scrunched her nose even as Hermione tried to discretely close the flap. "Another potion? Oh, that's no fun at all. And after last term, Harry, I'd expect something more _intriguing_ than potions from you." Myrtle openly looked him over head to toe and back again.

"You'll not tell on us, will you, Myrtle?" Hermione appealed to the ghost girl.

Myrtle snickered. "I'd never tell on _Harry_. He and I shared a _special moment _last term; we're close. Aren't we, Harry?"

"Uh… well…"

Myrtle cackled and swooped in a circle. "Do you know the girls' bathrooms are _much_ more interesting so far this term because of you, Harry? I should thank you for that alone."

"How did I…?" Harry began to ask the ghost, but he noticed Hermione scowl and he shifted his focus to her. "What?"

"He he he… Little Miss Potions uses the same loos I haunt, no doubt she's heard it. The _talk_, Harry."

"Hermione?" Harry asked uncertainly, wondering if he even wanted to know the answer.

"Oh, Harry… it's tactless, really, but… I've walked in on a few loo conversations about you between the other girls."

"What about me?" Harry frowned when the most logical conclusion came to mind. "They figure I was making up the stuff about Voldemort and Cedric? Think I'm either crazy or as dark as Voldemort is?"

"Oh, to be sure," Myrtle answered airily, "but _that's_ not the talk we mean." She gave Hermione a wink that made the living girl fume.

Hermione sighed and winced on Harry's behalf. "Just some really rude girls commenting on your… well, not on one thing specifically. Suffice it to say, quite a lot of girls think you are rather fanciable."

Harry's eyebrows rose incredulously. "They talk about me like _that_?"

"Like you've no mind or feelings at all," Hermione said angrily, "believe me, Harry, when I walk in on that kind of talk I give those girls a good tongue-lashing. They ought not talk about you like that. Half of them have never even spoken to you, wouldn't have the first idea what a great person you are, and they've certainly no right to talk about you like you're just some… object. I've not heard any more of that talk, so maybe they've learned their lesson and shut their mouths."

Myrtle laughed. "Ha! They haven't stopped, they've just spread the word not to talk about Harry in front of _you_." Myrtle sighed, "But I've become so popular in the loos this term. Once the girls found out I saw Harry _naked_."

Hermione made a sound between an indignant gasp and a high-pitched whimper and Harry wanted to open the Chamber of Secrets and jump down the shaft.

"You _what_?" Hermione yelped, and looked at Harry.

Harry grimaced; it was time to come clean on Myrtle's 'help' last term. "You know how I said Cedric tipped me off to put the egg with the clue to the second task under the water? Actually, he just told me to take a bath with it… Myrtle was the one who told me to put it underwater."

"Oh…" Hermione looked torn. Finally, she said to the ghostly girl, "Well, thank you for helping him figure that out, Myrtle."

"_That_ came with thanks in itself," Myrtle sniggered in response, and Hermione narrowed her eyes but chose to say nothing. The ghost looked again at the items between the teens. "Any chance this little project will require another bath?" She looked very pointedly at Harry.

"No," Hermione said curtly. "No, this will have nothing to do with anyone taking a bath."

"Oh… too bad. I wouldn't mind, you know, Harry. Seems the talk in the loos is right; you've had a _very_ good summer," Myrtle gave him another lascivious look.

"You know," Harry stood hastily, "I should probably get back to the common room before Ron wakes up and finds us both gone. He's not likely to think anything good about us being off somewhere without him."

"He's been acting a bit odd this year, don't you think?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "He's Ron."

Hermione nodded and let it go at that. "I'll be here a while longer starting the potion. If Ron asks, tell him I'm in the library working on Arithmancy."

As ill luck would have it, Ron was already awake when Harry made it back to the common room, but only just. He approached Harry with a serious case of bed-head, the red hair that was sticking up looking almost like a rooster's crown. "Hey, where were you? And where's Hermione?"

"We were working on some homework in the library. She's still there doing her Arithmancy."

Ron peered a long moment at Harry before nodding acceptance and heading up to the dorm room.

Harry sat down on the now-vacated couch and pulled out a book, thinking he'd wait up a bit for Hermione in case she returned to Gryffindor tower before it was too late in the evening. Once he had his book open, he placed the animagus spell against the pages and began to read the words that he'd almost completely memorized already. If anyone walked by, it would look like he was reading his history book. He was left alone, the open book a sure sign among students to leave another be, while Harry poured over the spell for the hundredth time.

* * *

Patch-work light filtered through the canopy and blanketed the jungle floor. Shadows sliced and slithered and danced amid shades of green, all shades of green, from pale green to primary green to jade to emerald. Even the tree trunks were wrapped in green, moss and ferns and climbing vines questing toward the sky. Birds and insects filled the world with sound, sounds that cut crisp and clear into his ears. He slunk along, close to the ground, smooth and sure. Muscles rippled and his senses were almost maddeningly acute. Not a bird wing fluttered or cricket jumped that he did not know about. He was part of the fabric of the jungle, and he felt its pulse through the bottom of his feet, heard it with his ears, tasted it on the wind. He crept through brush and passed under water-heavy leaves of fountain-like ferns, felt their tips trail along his back in perfect little pricks of contact. He came upon the stream snaking its way through the trees, trickling and rushing and sparkling in chunks of reflected sunlight. He moved closer, bent down to drink… and in the water's surface, his reflection, dancing and jumping, all he could make out his black hair and blue eyes.

Harry awoke abruptly and stared up at the canopy of his four poster bed. Early morning light spread from the window of the boys' dorm room, marking the hour as close to seven thirty. Harry blinked and took a deep breath, fighting to orient himself. His body was rigid and his skin flushed and coated in a sheen of sweat. His toes were curled. After a moment adjusting to being awake, he realized he was clutching his sheets in his fists. He consciously opened his fingers and let go his hold.

Harry sighed and rubbed at his face with both hands. The dream again. Harry had had his fair share of unusual dreams and tended not to think much of them, but for the past four nights, it had been one dream in particular. The jungle dream. It touched him so powerfully that he awoke as from a Voldemort vision-dream, but without the pain or terror or sensation of diseased rot in his blood. The jungle dream was similar in gripping him so intensely, in jarring him awake to find that his body had been just as gripped by the dream as his mind.

Harry sat up in bed and unexpectedly shivered in the morning air. For a moment, he'd actually expected the tropical heat of the jungle and not the balmy cool of Hogwarts. "That decides it," he muttered to himself as he got out of bed to get in a quick shower before he had to be down for breakfast. He'd not thought anything of the dream the first time except that it had been abnormal from his usual brand of dream, good or bad. When he had the same dream a second time he thought it an odd coincidence. After the third night, he began to wonder if he should tell Hermione. Now this, the fourth night in a row, made up his mind for him. He'd not wanted to bother her about something that might not be important, since she'd been working hard for a week trying to finish the animagus potion before the impending full moon, but it was now to the point where he knew she'd be offended if he didn't tell her.

She was already sitting at the Gryffindor table when he arrived down at the Great Hall for breakfast. She was nibbling on a muffin absently, her full attention on an open book on the table, slanted so she could fit both her plate and book before her. It forced her to cock her head to read as she chewed at the same time. Harry knew Hermione well enough to know that her chews would be timed with the completion of a sentence. Bites matched to new paragraphs, assuming they weren't short ones, drinks with page turns. It was a habit Harry thought strangely cute in his bookish friend.

There was a place empty beside Hermione and Harry sat down next to her. Hermione looked up at him and smiled. "Morning, Harry."

Harry glanced around, slid in closer to Hermione's side, and without thinking about it took her elbow in his hand. Hermione became more serious at once and leaned in closer. "What is it?"

Harry leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Have you been having any unusual dreams?"

Hermione's eyes brightened and Harry felt relieved. Hermione only lit up like that for good things. Her bright eyes from figuring out a nasty but vexing problem had a different glint, and Harry knew how to tell those glimmers apart.

"Yes, I have!" she whispered back excitedly, "Just last night, in fact." Harry took a quick look around to make sure no one was listening, and there were a few people watching them, but they looked more interested in the way Harry had sat down tight beside Hermione and at once bent close to whisper to her. Their smirks and elbow jabs at neighbors gave away their thoughts on the matter, and it wasn't that they could hear Harry and Hermione talking. That was what was important for now, so Harry ignored them. Hermione was too preoccupied by Harry's confession to even notice the looks cast their way.

Hermione had put her muffin down and shifted to more directly face Harry, though she dare not lean back or talk any louder. "This is just what we wanted to have happen, Harry," she said softly, "it means we're internalizing the transformation spell just as we should for it to work. It's become ingrained and it's finding its way into our dreams, part of our subconscious. Plus the tokens have been put in the potion to strengthen their magical connection, so that would amplify their link to us as well… this is great, Harry. It means our inner animals are stirring."

Harry was just glad to hear it wasn't him alone having unusual dreams. "So what did you dream?"

"I was in a field. There was yellow grass, and trees in the distance, and I was running. I was _so fast_." Hermione's eyes lost focus, took on a dreamy quality, and Harry knew that Hermione's dreams had been just as intense and visceral as his. He swallowed a lump in his throat at the thought of Hermione waking taut and shiny with sweat as he had. "I was thinking maybe it means I'm a gazelle or something. Wouldn't that be incredible if I was?" Hermione returned her attention sharply to Harry and leaned in closer, in her enthusiasm resting one hand on Harry's leg. "What did you dream, Harry?"

Harry glanced down at Hermione's hand on him then said, "Umm… I'm in a jungle. That's about it. It feels like I'm actually there."

Hermione nodded eagerly, "Me too."

"_Ahem_."

Harry and Hermione startled apart to see Ron had plopped down at the table across from them and was regarding them both sourly.

Hermione shifted away from Harry and removed her hand from his thigh. "Good morning, Ron."

Ron turned a particularly venomous glare at Harry but to Hermione said pleasantly enough, "Good morning, Hermione. So, what were you two talking about?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Oh, just Potions."

Ron narrowed his eyes at Hermione. "Uh huh."

Harry frowned and opened his mouth to ask Ron when he'd decided to start carrying his wand up his arse when Ginny exploded upon their tense little trio like a whirlwind.

"Hey! Did you guys hear about Ollivander?"

"No, what about him?" Harry asked, anxious for something to derail the inquisition Ron had started in on, even if it was to risk more of Ginny's blatant and uncomfortable overtures.

Ginny squeezed in next to Ron and said, "He was kidnapped. Right out of Diagon Alley last night."

"Where'd you hear that?" Ron asked.

"From Colin. His cousin started working at Madam Malkins during the summer and owled him this morning with the news. Apparently it's all the talk going around Diagon Alley. Well, now all the talk around Hogwarts, too."

Hermione frowned. "Why would anyone want to kidnap Mister Ollivander?"

"Well, the theory is that it was You Know Who."

"Obviously," Ron retorted, "it's not likely someone _not_ in league with You Know Who would have any reason to kidnap anybody."

Ginny shrugged and snatched a sausage shamelessly from Ron's plate. Her brother scowled and scooted his plate away from her.

"What would Voldemort want with a wandsmith?" Harry wondered aloud.

Ron went pale at the dark wizard's name being spoken aloud and Ginny smiled at him, but it was sickly and almost pained. "Dunno. That's the mystery of it. And to think that they could get at someone in a place as public and crowded as Diagon Alley without being caught out is the really frightening part. But I've checked the _Daily Prophet_, and there's no word of it. Makes you think it really must be You Know Who at work."

"If Mad-Eye's right about everything about You Know Who being exactly what _isn't_ printed in the newspaper, which just sounds cock-eyed if you ask me."

"We didn't," Ginny said shortly and reached toward Ron's plate again. He slapped her hand and shouldered her away. Ron glowered at his sister then turned his anger on the group en masse. "Wouldn't you think people should have some kind of warning about a dark wizard on the loose?"

"We have had warning. Word of mouth." All eyes turned to Hermione at her proclamation. She glanced once at Harry then leaned in closer. "At end of term. Dumbledore told all the students of Hogwarts, as well as the visiting students of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, about You Know Who being back when the ministry didn't particularly think it a wise thing to do. He told everyone he was in a position to tell, a crowd full of witches and wizards. He knew we'd each and every one of us tell our parents or guardians what he told us."

"Right, and did you?" Ron asked snottily.

Hermione abruptly closed her mouth and sat back blinking. She looked thoroughly blind-sided as she looked back at Ron across the table.

Ron nodded at her stunned silence and a sneer twisted his expression into something truly unattractive, almost grotesque even. "Yeah, I thought as much, and what about you, Harry? Tell your guardians about You Know Who, did you?"

Harry didn't really notice nor care about the manner in which Ron flung the question at him. He knew his friend got hot-headed sometimes and said inappropriate things, and he wasn't about to let it get to him. What he _did_ respond to was the verbal attack on Hermione. Ron had no right to launch into Hermione like that, friend or not. He stared hard at Ron, for a moment searching for the good mate he knew had the same face. At times, it seemed Ron was a stranger to him. Before the Triwizard Tournament, Harry would have confessed that Ron could be a prat and a bit thick at times, but never cruel. After the Goblet of Fire, he couldn't attest to that anymore.

Ron was watching Harry and his expression was unreadable.

"My _guardians_," Harry said slowly, "would be only too happy if I were to die. Given half the chance, they'd probably hand me over to Voldemort themselves, so _no_, I didn't tell them."

Ron's offensive demeanor crumbled, but it was replaced by something uncertain and uncomfortable… and almost unrecognizable as Harry sat watching and fuming.

The tense stalemate at the breakfast table was broken when Hermione slipped her arm around Harry's and whispered in that cool, soothing voice she could master at will, "Come on, Harry."

He didn't know where she meant them to go, but he didn't have to. He trusted her and he'd follow wherever she went. Without taking his eyes from Ron, he let Hermione tug him to his feet and steer him toward the doors. She stayed tight at his side, her arm locked around his as though she expected him to break away. He could tell she was tense from the sense emanating from her and the grip she had on his arm. There was a resounding smack from behind them that could only be Ginny swatting her brother a good one upside the back of his head. Ron's invective shortly thereafter was only the seal of proof, though Harry didn't bother to turn around and look. He certainly couldn't spare any sympathy for Ron just then.

Once out in the corridor and out of the sight of the gathered students in the Great Hall, Hermione stopped them both, turned to Harry, and folded against his chest. On reflex, Harry brought up his arms to hold her. Since their new understanding about hugs, it wasn't strange for her to just look to him for one. He'd grown rather accustomed to them. Her hands came up and she fisted the front of his robes in her hands as though she could squeeze away the desire to scream with her fingers. She was rigid in his embrace, taut with tension and anger, and she hissed again his shoulder, "He can be such a _prat_!"

Harry squeezed her to fend off his own derogatory remark about their redheaded friend. It was uncontested that Ron was a prat, but he'd been particularly pratty since the start of term, and Harry had had about enough. Maybe it was the graveyard, Cedric dying, Voldemort's return… Harry couldn't say, but he did know he didn't suffer mistreatment as he used to. He was tired of cowing and bending and enduring, and bad enough when it was aimed at him, but _Hermione_, the one person who'd never doubted him or questioned him or abandoned him, which was far more than could be said for _Ron_...

Hermione sighed against his shoulder and with her escaping breath a measure of her tension fled. Her death grip on his robes loosened, though she still held on. She was a little calmer against him, but still mad. Still hurt.

Harry was seconds away from turning on his heel and marching back into the Great Hall to give Ron a piece of his mind when Ginny came barreling out of the Hall and almost ran right into them standing just outside the door.

"Oh!" Ginny slid to a stop just as Harry looked over at her past the top of Hermione's head. Hermione looked up at Ginny from Harry's shoulder but didn't make any supreme effort to pull away as though they'd been caught in some illicit act. It was unhurried the way Harry let her go and Hermione moved to face Ginny. They acted as though Ginny had merely come upon them standing and talking in the hall rather than hugging. All in all, very anticlimactic from the split-second gape-jaw expression on Ginny's face.

Ginny looked between the two of them once… then smiled. Smiled for an instant then it was gone. She glanced back toward the Great Hall and her expression darkened. "Not that I take responsibility for that git, but I'm sorry about Ron back there."

"What's his problem?" Harry asked bitterly. He would have an end to Ron doing this to Hermione… being bizarrely accommodating and considerate one moment and striking at her the next. He couldn't allow it to continue, and if it came down to a choice between his friends he had no reservations about where his ultimate loyalty would lie.

Ginny opened her mouth to answer when the call of, "Harry Potter, sir!" made all three turn.

"Dobby?" Harry asked as the house elf, wearing a clean white pillow case like a toga with a hole cut for his arms and head, came running up to them. He stopped at Harry's feet and gazed up at the young wizard in nothing short of adoration. "Harry Potter! Headmaster Dumbledore asks you to see him right away."

"Now? But I have Transfiguration in ten minutes."

Dobby shook his head so furiously it sent his bat-like ears flapping. "No, no, excused tardy, Headmaster wants to see you at once. Come, come."

Harry looked back at Hermione and Ginny.

"Go on," Hermione said with a nod, and Harry nodded back and left with the ecstatic house elf.

When he was gone Hermione turned to Ginny, took the younger girl's arm, and led her further from the Great Hall. "Ginny… what is going on with Ron?" she asked in a low voice when they were far enough from prying ears. "He's been behaving even more strangely than usual. Has something happened we should know about?"

Ginny looked almost aggrieved to say it. "Oh, Hermione… it's Ron's problem, and I'm truly sorry it's come between your and Harry's friendship with him, but no one expects you to stop seeing Harry because my brother's jealous."

"Jealous… stop seeing… _what_?!" Hermione squeaked.

"You know Ron's always fancied you, right?"

Hermione shifted uneasily on her feet and needlessly glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was nearby. "Well… I guess so. I mean, he's always been a bit daft around me, dafter than normal, and I'm not stupid, I figured it might be that. But he's never been so…"

"Mean?"

Hermione nodded.

"Ever since first seeing you again at King's Cross after the summer holiday, Ron got the idea in his head that this year he'd get up the courage to do something about his crush on you. Took quite a bit of guts on his part, actually, maybe he managed to learn a thing or two from those dragon-keepers in Romania after all, who knows, but he was convinced this would be the year. It was just hard on him to learn he was too late."

"And I have a bad feeling this is where you're going to bring in that 'seeing Harry' nonsense," Hermione said warily.

Ginny seemed unfazed by Hermione's dubious tone regarding the subject of Harry. She gave Hermione a sympathetic smile and said, "He shouldn't see it as a betrayal, you were never Ron's, but you know my brother. He doesn't think clearly when it comes to Harry. In some ways, competing with Harry's been loads worse for him than any kind of sibling rivalry at home."

"Just a minute. Are you saying Ron thinks Harry stole me from him?"

Ginny nodded.

"But, _Ginny_! That's ridiculous! Harry and I aren't… we don't… _we're not dating_."

"Come on, Hermione." That made Hermione pull up short for the second time that morning. Ginny was looking at her with a soft smile and gentle eyes, a complete one-eighty from typical whirlwind, spitfire Ginny Weasley. It was almost disconcerting, but Hermione was helpless to do anything but listen when Ginny went on. "Everyone sees the way you two are around each other this year. You've really done nothing to hide it, and nor should you have to. If it helps, most everyone's happy for you two. Of course, the Slytherin table has a different opinion on the matter, but they're near as like in league with You Know Who, so take that for what it's worth."

"Honestly, Ginny, you've got it wrong. Harry and I are just friends." Hermione frowned when the further implications clicked. "Not that it would be any of Ron's bloody concern if I _was_ dating Harry. He should be _happy_ for us, you know, were there an _us_. That's what a _friend_ would do."

"You're right. But my brother can be a colossal arse, a sad fact we both know too well. He's mad when he has no right to be. I don't think he knows how to be friends with both of you and resent both of you at the same time." Ginny crossed her arms over her chest and looked almost forlornly toward the entrance to the Great Hall wherein her brother still brooded. "He'd really like to blame Harry entirely for this, I know Ron would, but then again you're the one who chose Harry over him."

"It was never a _choice_, Ginny!"

"I know that."

Hermione sighed in frustration and rubbed her forehead. She felt the start of a headache creeping up. "Well, thanks for telling me what was making Ron act so bipolar. I don't know what I'm going to do about it, but at least now I know why he's acting strangely."

Ginny nodded, turned to leave, but stopped half-way and looked toward Hermione when another thought occurred to her. "_I'm_ happy for you and Harry, if it counts for anything."

Hermione didn't have the strength to continue to deny a relationship with Harry when Ginny had as well as made up her mind already. It was really the lesser of her problems at the moment. Her big one (after Voldemort, of course) was one Ronald Weasley.


	28. Chapter 28

A/N: I will say this once more then I will not address it again. As I stated in the author's note for Chapter One of this story, I am taking my canon from the movies. In the movies, Harry has blue eyes (because Daniel Radcliffe has blue eyes). I'm sorry if that's an issue for some readers, but I am not changing it.

* * *

"Headmaster? Dobby said you wanted to see me?"

Dumbledore looked up from a scroll unfurled on his desk and peered at Harry over his half moon glasses. "Ah, yes, Harry. Please," he gestured toward the chair opposite his desk. "Crumpet?"

"Ah, no," Harry sat down as bade and added unnecessarily to the headmaster's offer, "I'm just back from breakfast." Which he hadn't eaten, Harry realized in that moment. He'd been too wrapped up in first telling Hermione his jungle dream, then being forced to deal with Ron the Wonder Prat.

"Very well, then. How was your summer with the Grangers?"

Harry frowned in confusion. He hadn't figured Dumbledore would have him miss the beginning of McGonagall's class to ask about his summer holiday. A summons to the headmaster's office would surely be about something a bit more important than how he rated his summer vacation. But Dumbledore was clearly waiting for an answer. "Umm… well, it was great, actually."

"Delightful to hear. I must say that you look well; it would appear that the Granger residence agrees with you."

"They're very good people." It seemed so little to say for all that the Grangers had done for him, but he wasn't really sure that the full scope of the Grangers' hospitality toward him could be defined in words. It had been beyond anything Harry had ever experienced before.

"So they are."

Harry and Dumbledore stared at each other a moment, Harry perplexed and Dumbledore looking just merry at the chance for a friendly chat, as though they'd gotten together for a spot of tea and light conversation. At some point, it almost became a contest who could hold out longest in this farce.

Harry caved first.

"Umm… Headmaster? Was there a reason you asked me here?"

"Yes, in fact there was." He turned his eyes to his desk and picked up a pocket-sized scroll that most likely had been sent by owl post. He handed it to Harry, who accepted it with a querulous look toward his headmaster. "I needed you to read this in a safe place," Dumbledore said softly.

Harry looked down at the note and his eyes widened. He recognized his godfather's handwriting at once. Instantly, his attention on the note was rapt.

_'Harry, _

'I'm sorry I have not had the chance to contact you this summer, and I am terribly sorry that I missed your birthday. I know I've missed too many to expect forgiveness for yet another, but I hope you'll understand once Headmaster Dumbledore explains everything to you.

'I can't say much right now, I just wanted you to know I am safe and well… for now. See that you stay that way, too.

'Love,

'Sirius'

Harry read the note twice, but that was all there was. No further explanation to be gleaned from the letter's content, no indication what this 'explanation' from Dumbledore might entail. He finally looked up at the headmaster in question.

Dumbledore flicked his wand and the note in Harry's hand suddenly burst into flame. Harry flinched back and the black cinders fell to the floor.

"And now…" Dumbledore cast a _silencio_ and barred his office door with two expert flicks of his wand, "that explanation due you.

"While you were hidden away at the Grangers and I was here safe-guarding any access to the school records that might lead an enemy to your location, I got in contact with you godfather. Naturally, when he learned of Voldemort's return, your involvement in it, and the dark wizard's continuing morbid interest in you, he was eager to do whatever possible to help protect you.

"Since June he has been on a fact-gathering mission trying to discover the location of Voldemort and his followers. My brother, Aberforth, is working with him."

Harry gaped at Dumbledore. To hear nothing from his godfather, and then suddenly learn he was hunting down Voldemort? Shocked was an understatement to describe Harry's reaction to that news.

"Anything they find out I pass on to the ministry to assist their efforts to combat Voldemort, though of course I don't mention Sirius being present, only my brother. Still a bit of a sticky situation with trying to clear Sirius's name, but at this time a secondary concern. Sirius agrees."

"How…" Harry didn't even know where to begin. "Sirius and your brother?"

"An odd pairing for fact-finding partners?"

Harry nodded. Good a question as any.

"Yes, I guess it would seem so. But you see, not so odd, as Aberforth and Sirius have one striking similarity that serves them exceedingly well in this venture. They are both animagi."

Harry sat up straighter. "Your brother's an animagus?"

Dumbledore nodded, sat back in his chair, and his eyes took on a dreamy quality. "When we were young, in our sixth year at Hogwarts, Aberforth and I decided we had yet to tackle one magical hurdle in our education, sanctioned or not. The animagus spell. So we took it upon ourselves to tackle it. I'd blame the fact our mother had been gone quite some time and that Aber and I were practically raised by a house elf that we'd do something so disapproved of by the ministry with little regard for the legal breach it constituted, but that would be unfair to Kimmy. She did help us, was with us every step of the way as we struggled to learn the process toward our first transformation, but she is certainly not at fault and I'd never implicate her as guilty to our mischief. Aberforth and I were headstrong and determined. It took us two years to manage, but ever since Aberforth has had the ability to turn into a golden eagle."

"And did you..."

Dumbledore's eyes refocused and he smiled, but a bit crookedly as though at a tacky joke. "Yes, I too managed the transformation. Had the misfortune to be a pygmy goat, I'm afraid. The first time I brought up my cud really soured me to the animagus experience and I've not done it since. Aberforth, on the other hoof, has enjoyed many flights in his bird of prey form. He was actually the one to deliver Sirius's note to me." Dumbledore paused a moment to give Harry time to let it all sink it. "It is as Shylock that Aberforth is working with Sirius to track down Voldemort, using their animal guises to go places regular wizards could not go without being spotted."

"Shylock?" Harry asked dumbly.

"Aberforth's animagus name."

"Oh." Harry felt slightly numb as he took in all he'd just been told.

Dumbledore sat forward again and leveled a long look at Harry. "I was not convinced that telling you what Sirius was up to was in your best interests. I believed you had enough to worry about without adding your questing godfather to that dour list, but he was insistent that he be allowed to tell you he was well and doing all in his power to help you."

On that Harry was very steadfast in his certainty. "I want to know what Sirius is doing. Thank you for telling me."

Dumbledore nodded and grew very serious. "I realize you've been through a great deal, Harry. Far more than anyone else your age. With that experience comes a maturity beyond your chronological years, and I have truly made an effort to treat you as the age you reflect rather than the age you are. You deserve as much for what you've had to endure, and so far you've proven up to the task of handling that greater responsibility. Primarily for that reason, I trusted you'd be able to rationally handle news of your godfather's activities… and acknowledged that Sirius just might know you better than I do."

It was odd to think of someone knowing more than Dumbledore about anything, even if it was on the subject of Harry himself. But Sirius _was_ right, Harry had to know. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. I did worry that I hadn't heard from him in so long, and I wanted to send him an owl this summer, but I wasn't sure it would be safe… well, Hermione was sure it wouldn't be."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "Sirius was convinced you were wise enough to hear the truth and not do anything overly rash; in the end, I was certain you'd be wise enough to listen to Miss Granger should you find yourself unsure."

"I'd have to be touched in the head _not_ to listen to the smartest witch at Hogwarts."

"So it is that great men and women need even greater counsel."

It sounded suspiciously like an implied assent. "Does that mean I can tell Hermione what you told me? About Sirius going after Voldemort?"

"I honestly did not expect you to keep it a secret from her to begin with. But be cautious, Harry. While I would like to think Hogwarts is without its dark sides, we can't be absolutely certain that something seen or heard in the halls or common rooms wouldn't be communicated to Voldemort. It would be disastrous and quite likely fatal for your godfather's animagus form and his current endeavor to be leaked to the enemy."

"I understand," Harry replied gravely.

Dumbledore glanced at the clock on his wall, the face swirling into view from an otherwise moonlit sky just when the old wizard had need to know the time. "You best hurry to Transfiguration then, Harry. Professor McGonagall will not take kindly to you missing too much of her class, and in that there's only so much even I can do to stay her displeasure." As he said the last, there was a humorous twinkle in the headmaster's eye.

Harry stood. "Of course. And thank you again, sir." Harry turned and made for the door. All of the nettling concerns that had pressed at him when he entered Dumbledore's office, petty quibbles with Ron and insignificant dreams of harmless jungles, were practically forgotten when he left.

* * *

Hermione was finding it abnormally difficult to concentrate on Professor McGonagall in Transfiguration. She made the effort, tried to focus so hard that her jaw hurt from clenching so tight, but it seemed to be of little use. Her notebook before her was disturbingly sparse of her handwriting and she was flicking the feather-end of her quill against the desktop. She just couldn't get interested in turning a book into a pixie. She was more concerned with the two empty stools of either side of her. Harry had been summoned to Dumbledore's office, and Ron had not even spared her a glance when the Gryffindors filed into McGonagall's classroom. He veered from the trio's usual spot in the back of the class and instead sat down with Dean and Seamus. Hermione looked at the back of his head and frowned. What Ginny had said was bugging her. Of course, Ron had it completely wrong to think she and Harry were a couple, but if that was the misconception he was erroneously belaboring under, then was it partly her fault that Ron was acting so wretched toward her and Harry? Had she done something to encourage it? Nothing conscious or intentional, but she had to admit that after spending the entire summer together she and Harry _were_ closer. She'd come to truly treasure that newfound closeness to Harry. She didn't like the idea that she ought to feel guilty about it. She and Harry were very close friends, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ron shouldn't begrudge them companionship.

She was debating whether or not she should try talking to Ron when Harry slipped into class and took a seat on the stool to her right. The issue of Ron's misunderstanding took a backseat as she glanced over at Harry and saw a very… significant look on his face. He had something to tell her, she could read it in his expression. He met her eyes, gave a short shake of his head, then turned his attention to the front of the class. For a second his gaze stopped on Ron sitting with Seamus and Dean and he frowned in mixed anger and confusion, then he was doing his best to listen to McGonagall.

Hermione redoubled her efforts to pay attention to the teacher, a task which usually came second nature to her, but today it felt like replanting mandrakes.

Transfiguration seemed to last an interminably long amount of time before McGonagall dismissed the class. The students stood and gathered their things to make for their next class. Idle chatter picked up as classmates began to converse. Hermione stuffed her book and notes into her bag and glanced toward Ron. He was talking with Seamus and Dean, but at that particular moment he glanced toward Hermione and the expression on his face was both wounded and indignant at once. Hermione wanted to march up to him right then and sort everything out, because this was just stupid, even on the Ron Weasley scale of dumb.

Then Harry was in her personal space, standing over her, leaning down close and whispering, "Mione," in her ear. Hermione saw Ron's ears turn red as he watched from across the room.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at Harry to find his face only an inch from hers… he'd not backed off from bending close to whisper to her. She blinked and for an instant her heart fluttered at his proximity, the way his breath warmed her neck and stirred her hair, the way she could breathe in and smell Harry, that scent uniquely his that had become so indelibly familiar. She blinked again to get a hold of herself. "Yes?"

"We need to talk," Harry said, and without further explanation reached down and took her hand.

Hermione didn't bother to spare a glance toward Ron as she stood and followed Harry out of the Transfiguration room, his hand linked with hers. She gathered he was taking her somewhere where they could talk. And just as well. Harry needed to hear about Ron's brainless assumption that was giving all of them so much grief. Maybe Harry could talk to Ron; they were both guys, it might sound better or perhaps more convincing coming from him.

Harry led Hermione out into the hall, paused to look around, then he ducked toward a wall with her in tow. Harry opened the door to a broom closet, glanced quickly around to see if anyone was watching, then herded Hermione inside with a hand on her side. Hermione squeezed in and turned to Harry, now doubly curious what could be so important and private that only a broom closet would do.

Harry squeezed inside with her and shut the door behind him, blanketing the room in pitch blackness but for the tiny strip of light where the bottom of the door didn't quite meet the floor. Hermione dug out her wand, cast a _silencio_, then cast _lumos_. Harry's face flickered into view, cast in engulfing shadows and lighted by the bluish white light of the _lumos_ spell emitting from the tip of Hermione's wand. Harry squinted from the bright point of light. She lowered her wand to stomach-level so it wasn't glaring in their faces.

Hermione wasn't even thinking about Ron just then. "What did Dumbledore want to see you about?"

"About Sirius. He's out hunting Voldemort."

Hermione gasped.

"Did you know Dumbledore is an animagus?" Harry asked.

Hermione adjusted to the change in topic with deft ease. "Yes. Before I brought up the idea of us trying to become animagi this summer I did a fair bit of research on the topic. That's when I learned about Dumbledore. He's registered with the ministry. He's listed as non-practicing, though… hasn't been an active animagus for over seventy years. When a witch or wizard is capable of becoming an animagus but hasn't for a long period of time, so long it might as well be assumed they never intend to transform again, the ministry reclassifies them so the Animagus Registry will reflect only currently practicing animagi."

Harry stopped to regard Hermione a moment. "You don't seem at all surprised that Dumbledore's an animagus."

"I'm not. A wizard as powerful as Dumbledore… I'm not certain I'd consider anything beyond his abilities."

Harry had to concede that fact. "I guess so. When you were looking into the Animagus Registry, did you learn that Aberforth Dumbledore is an animagus too?"

Hermione nodded then frowned. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you when I found out; I honestly didn't think you'd be all that interested."

Harry smirked. "Well, you're right, normally I wouldn't be, but Dumbledore called me into his office just now to tell me that Sirius and Aberforth are working together, using their animal forms, to try and find Voldemort."

"Goodness…" Hermione murmured in muted shock. "Should Sirius be out looking for trouble? I mean, he's still on the outs with the ministry; they still think he's a guilty man."

Harry shrugged. "I know, but he found out about what happened end of term last year, with Voldemort and Cedric in the graveyard, and he insisted on doing something to try and keep me safe." Harry's expression turned drawn and concerned.

Hermione stepped closer and touched his arm with her free hand. "I'm sure he'll be fine, Harry. Sirius is a clever wizard, he had to be to escape Azkaban, and if he has a Dumbledore with him… I can't expect there's anyone better to have as an ally. If Aberforth's even half as powerful as his brother, and you know, magical ability like that often runs in families, so I'll bet his is, then we needn't be too worried for Sirius's sake. I imagine the pair of them can handle anything that crops up."

"I know, I just… I'm tired of people I care about being in danger because of me."

Hermione slid her hand down his arm until she took his hand in hers. She gave his fingers a squeeze. "We put ourselves on the line for you because you're worth it, Harry."

Harry sighed. He looked far from bolstered by Hermione's statement, if anything, he looked a little pale. But maybe that was the light of the _lumos_.

Then he squeezed her hand in return and said, "We should go before we're late to our next class." He didn't want to talk about it, obviously, and she wasn't going to push him.

Hermione nodded agreement, extinguished her _lumos_, disspelled the _silencio_, then pressed close to Harry in the total darkness as he moved to the door knob. They slipped back out into the corridor of students hurrying to class, Hermione's hand firmly held in Harry's. Fred and George were loitering not far from the broom closet, near enough to see the two fifth years make their exit. Fred raised the call. "Oiy! Way to go, Harry!" A few cat calls and whistles followed on the heels of Fred's attention-grabbing salutation. It didn't take a genius to know what everyone figured she and Harry had been doing in the broom closet between classes. Hermione blushed furiously, but Harry's hold on her hand did not waver and Hermione drew courage from it. If Harry wasn't going to shy then neither would she. She hurried to walk more closely at Harry's side, their fingers still firmly entangled, and they plowed through the giggles and teasing without acknowledging a single one of them.

Only briefly did Hermione pause to wonder if Ron was anywhere nearby, and if he'd seen. Even if he hadn't seen them, he'd no doubt hear about Harry and Hermione's presumed mid-day broom closet snog-fest through the rumor mill before the day's end.

She was not going to worry about it. With Harry's godfather in harm's way, hunting down the most powerful dark wizard in history in order to safeguard Harry, Ron's little sophomoric tantrums were inconsequential.


	29. Chapter 29

A/N: I don't usually include progress reports in chapter posts of "Vox Corporis", but in this case I think there are a lot of readers who'd like to know that I just finished writing The Talk scene. Harry and Hermione finally get around to discussing That Night after the Triwizard Tournament. So yes, they do talk about it... just hang in there until page 414 and you'll have the conversation you've been wanting since Chapter Three :)

The timing upon which this chapter fell was entirely serendipitous, but it serves really well as a nice Christmas present for all you readers, IMO. Happy holidays and enjoy!

* * *

Harry was working late in the library on his Potions homework. For days it had been his retreat of choice. Ron wasn't speaking to him, and Harry hadn't been in any great hurry to rectify their cracked friendship while Ron was still acting like a moron, so Harry had taken to avoiding his once best friend completely. That meant doing his homework in the library, the least likely place for Ron to go, rather than the common room. Frequently, Hermione would be holed up in the library with him, doing her own homework or keeping him company (when she wasn't in the girls' loo working on the animagus potion), which had been a salve to what might have been a painful schism between childhood friends. When she was across the table, right there if he only looked up, it was a reminder of why he was so angry at Ron in the first place. He'd look upon her face, vigilantly studious yet quick to smile for him, and he'd remember the way she'd looked after one of Ron's callous remarks.

Ultimately, it led to several late-night sessions in the library for Harry to be out of Ron's way, with the unanticipated benefit of improving his marks in class.

Harry would have thought their falling out with Ron would be a private matter, but it seemed most of Hogwarts was wise to the disruption. Of course, the more observant teachers noticed that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were no longer sitting together, three abreast, as they had since first year. Neville had spent about a day being overly friendly to Harry, perhaps trying to fill the hole left by Ron. It only lasted that single day, because Neville just wasn't Ron, and in fact the hole left wasn't so big as Neville must have at first believed, because Hermione was usually able to compensate for any gap resulting in Ron's parting. Harry appreciated Neville's gesture, but the fact was Neville wasn't needed. Hagrid had been a bit upset about the fight among his favorite students; in Care of Magical Creatures he'd tried to force a reconciliation by assigning the three of them to be a group to treat a wounded grindylow. Harry wasn't sure what Hagrid had expected, but probably not the grindylow getting its teeth in Ron's arm and the pair of them rolling around on the ground trying to out-scream each other before Hermione stunned the both of them. Ron hadn't seen _that_ as quite the valiant gesture on Hermione's part that it was, to say the least. After that, the cold distance between them grew frostier still.

So it would seem the three were down to two. Considering Ron's recent behavior, Harry wasn't really sure it bothered him that much. Ron should have believed him about the Goblet of Fire. Every time he gave the situation with Ron any amount of thought, he came back to that. Harry had _sworn_ he hadn't put his name in the goblet, but _Ron refused to believe him_. Hermione had gone on faith; she'd only had to be assured once that Harry hadn't done it, and she'd never given it another second's doubt. Ron should have been the same. He should have trusted Harry if he was the good friend he claimed he was.

So Harry had been spending his evenings in the library and nearly all of his spare time with Hermione.

It was getting late and most of the other students were trickling back to their common rooms. Harry was one of the last remaining in the library bent over his books. He could hear every rustle of paper, every little cough, every scrape of chair legs on the floor as someone got up to leave. It was amplified by the resounding silence of the stacks and tables. He'd come to appreciate the serene quiet of a library in the days since he'd started hiding away behind its doors.

He looked up from his book when a hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned in his chair to look behind him. Hermione smiled down at him and he immediately smiled back. "Hey, Mione."

"Almost finished, Harry?" she glanced at his open book and scrolls of homework on the desk. She looked so comfortable… at ease. For all the world it didn't appear to Harry that Ron's fracture from them was negatively impacting her. For that he was grateful.

"Sure, let me put this away and we'll go." Where was at her discretion. Sometimes they went for a run that ended down at the Black Lake shore. Sometimes they walked up to the owlery only to turn back without ever having mailed a letter. Sometimes they headed toward the common room only to knowingly miss their turn and have to circle back. Mostly, it was an excuse to be in one another's company. It was a chance to talk… talk the way they had at the Grangers' over the summer.

Harry stowed his things in his bag and stood. Hermione smiled at him and took up at his side as they left the library and started toward the Gryffindor common room at a snail's pace.

"Did you see the notice about the Hogsmeade weekend coming up?" Harry asked after a moment of companionable silence.

Hermione nodded. "To be honest, I was kind of surprised they'd allow it, all things considered. No doubt they'll have security enough to make it look like the queen's come to visit."

"Yeah… so, you planning to go?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Hermione's mouth. "Well… there's this book I was hoping I could find…"

Harry laughed. "Isn't there always? If I promise not to whine too much, you think we could stop in at the Quidditch shop after the bookstore?"

Hermione slid close to his side, momentarily took hold of his hand, and gave his forearm a squeeze with her other. "Deal. And you don't whine."

"Really?" Harry asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

"No," Hermione moved back away to a more casual distance, "you shuffle and shift around like a toddler who needs to go to the loo, but you don't _whine_ per se."

"I do not."

Hermione very nearly giggled and Harry gave her a gentle bump with his shoulder. Hermione reached out to steady herself and caught his arm. When she was sure on her feet again she forgot to let Harry's arm go.

They rounded the corner that would take them up to the stairwell leading to the fat lady painting and the Gryffindor common room beyond. Hermione suddenly stopped. Harry halted and turned to face her. "Hermione?"

Hermione stepped into Harry, stood on tip toe to bring her face to his, and just when Harry was sure his heart was going to jump into his throat she laid her cheek lightly against his and whispered with her lips brushing Harry's earlobe, "Full moon tonight, Harry."

Harry's eyes widened and he looked sharply at Hermione when she pulled back and watched his face. Her face was flushed with excitement, her eyes bright, her lips fighting a grin and trembling faintly with the effort. Harry blinked and had to clear his thoughts. "Full… so… we do it? Tonight?"

Hermione nodded and had to bite her lip to stop the exultant smile that was bursting to lay claim to her face. "Meet me at midnight in the common room? And bring your invisibility cloak."

Harry nodded mutely and followed, speechless, as Hermione walked off in the direction of the common room again. What with everything that had been going on with Ron and Sirius lately, Harry had lost track of the days and of the impending full moon. Tonight. It was daunting to think of all their preparations for months leading up to this night. He had a feeling the hours until midnight would feel like both the longest and shortest hours in his life.

* * *

Harry stole out of his dorm room at ten to midnight. Everyone else was fast asleep and had been for hours (if Harry could judge by the length of time Ron had been snoring), but Harry had been enclosed in his bed practicing the animagus spell a thousand times as he marked the hours until he would meet Hermione. He could already say it backwards and forward, but knowing that tonight it would be put to the test made him anxious to do some last-minute cramming. When he crept down to the common room he found Hermione waiting for him, her familiar black bag slung over one shoulder. She needlessly pressed her finger to her lips. Harry approached Hermione, draped the invisibility cloak over the both of them, and together, hunched over to stay fully covered by the cloak, they crept to the portrait hole. The fat lady stirred and snorted when her painting swung open for no apparent reason, but she quickly enough went back to sleep and Harry and Hermione were left to traverse the deserted corridors alone.

Harry didn't know where Hermione had in mind for them to go, so he let her take the lead. Bent nearly double as they were to scuttle along under the cloak, he found it easier to keep them tightly side by side without any potentially revealing bobbles to wrap his arm around her waist and hold them practically bound at the hip. Hermione hugged her bag before her and took them to a side entrance to the castle. Without a sound they snuck out on to the moonlit grounds. With a full snowy moon hanging high in the sky, it was easy to see in the night, every structure and feature gilded in silver light. Crickets were the loudest sound outside where normally the voices of schoolchildren would have been prominent, and Harry and Hermione's breaths were barely-there wisps of white leaving their lips.

Hermione patted his hand that was curled around her waist to get his attention and started forward again. Harry was perfectly in step with her and they left the castle behind.

It wasn't until they had crossed the grounds, slipped into the edge of the woods on the shores of the Black Lake, and come to a halt in a small clearing that one of them finally spoke. It was Hermione who broke the silence. "This should be far enough from the castle that we shouldn't be seen. Close enough to the lake, too."

Postponing the moment when they'd no longer be scrunched together under the cloak, Harry asked, "What does the lake have to do with it?"

"Well, think about it, if you turn into a fish then you'd be in a spot of trouble if we weren't near any water, wouldn't you?"

"Oh."

Harry reluctantly removed his arm from around her and drew the cloak off of them. Hermione looked up immediately at the moon, as though to double check that it was indeed full and luminous. Harry balled up the cloak and set it at the base of a tree. He was surprised to find he was unspeakably nervous. "So… what now?"

Hermione blinked at him, swallowed as though she were just as nervous, then grabbed for her bag. "Uh… right. Well, should get right to it then, don't you think?" She reached into her bag and drew out a sealed jar. Inside was a grey, gravy-like liquid with odd shapes and lumps inside. Harry recognized the shaft of one of Hedwig's feathers amid the goo and guessed it was the potion containing his tokens.

"I think you should go first," Hermione said.

Harry felt his pulse jump. "Me? Why me?"

Hermione chewed on her lip and studied him closely. "Because tokening came more naturally to you than it did to me. I think if only one of us were able to change tonight, it would be you."

Harry wished he had a good reason to forestall being the first one to actually try the transformation, but Hermione's logic was too sound. As usual. "Uh… okay. So, what am I supposed to do?"

Hermione handed him her bag and opened the jar with his tokens. "First, we need to build the frame. We have to lay out a pentagram pattern on the ground, at least one token at each point of the star. You'll stand in the center, and the magic that binds the tokens together will engulf you." Hermione moved a pace away, reached into the jaw, and withdrew Hedwig's potion-soaked feather. She laid it on the ground at her feet. A soft glow emitted from the point on the ground and the feather stuck where it had been laid. It didn't even flutter when a breeze wafted through the clearing. Harry stood back and watched.

Hermione went to the remaining four points of the unseen pentagram and laid a token at each juncture, each point glowing softly. Then she returned to the topmost point, the first point, and started again. She walked the same path, laid a new token each time, until she was down to the last two tokens in Harry's jar. The left-over tokens, since Harry's number of tokens and not been divisible evenly by five, she placed at the top point of the star. When she stepped away a pentagram was glowing on the ground before them. The points were the brightest, almost like a _lumos_, very nearly matching the pale glow of the moon, but when all the tokens had been added faint, misty, milky lines shimmered between the points. It created the familiar star shape, as well as boxing that five-pointed star in a polygon.

Harry's heart was racing. "So, I get in the middle, then?"

Hermione nodded, paused, and looked sharply over at Harry. "Oh…" she gasped when something abruptly came to mind.

"What?" he asked in concern.

"Oh, _bugger_, I should have thought of it! I can't believe I was so _stupid_." Hermione's face darkened in the moonlight. "Harry… I don't know how to say this. The animagus transformation… well, it only acts upon the physical witch or wizard who's changing. To take objects into the transformation requires practice. Things like wands… and clothes."

Harry froze. "Are you suggesting I…"

Hermione nodded miserably. "I'm sorry, Harry! I was so worried about getting the potion done in time it completely slipped my mind or else we could have brought a blanket."

"What about the cloak?" Harry started toward his invisibility cloak maybe a bit too eagerly.

Hermione caught his arm. "It's enchanted, otherwise it wouldn't be able to turn anything invisible. You can't introduce a foreign magical entity into the initial transformation process." Hermione stared hard at the ground and chewed on her lip in intense concentration. Harry willed her to think of something. "I suppose one of us could run back to the castle and get a blanket," she said haltingly.

Harry looked back toward the castle. Through the treetops he could see the spires of the castle towers in the distance. They'd stopped a good distance from the castle purposely. "I suppose… would chance that person getting caught, of course."

Hermione tapped her fingers against the jar's side in time with her racing thoughts, her face screwed, then she gave an exasperated sigh of surrender. "Oh, _honestly_, we're both mature, rational people, we should be able to handle a bit of nudity."

Harry's eyes widened nearly to the roundness of the overhanging moon. "You want us to… _naked_?"

Hermione gave him an apologetic smile. "If it makes you feel any less horrible about it, at least we'll be even. I'll have to strip, too."

Harry opened his mouth to protest… when a little voice inside him snagged fervently on the concept of 'Hermione naked'. It suddenly felt very warm in the night air, but Harry couldn't say with certainty that it was a flush of embarrassment. "Well… I _guess_… I mean, you're right, we're both mature enough."

Hermione nodded. "Exactly. We'll just accept the fact I'm going to see you naked, and you're going to see me naked, but that's all it is. No reason to lose our wits about it. It's just _skin_. And besides, we're friends, so it won't be like it's some stranger getting a peep."

Harry had to wonder if Hermione was talking about Myrtle. "Right."

They stood, unmoving, staring at each other.

Hermione broke the stale-mate first. "So… you should…"

Harry was sure this time that the heat in his face was a blush. "Umm… right." With stilted movements, he toed off his shoes and pulled off his T-shirt. Hermione stood off to the side, trying to seem inconspicuous and uninterested in the whole process. Harry dropped his glasses and wand to the pile he'd begun of his articles of clothing, and it was slightly better when he couldn't clearly see. He slipped off his pants and felt quite the fool standing in the middle of the forest in just his boxers. He paused there. Hermione had seen him in a near enough state to this when they were swimming. Actually skinning down to his birthday suit in front of her, though... that was a roadblock of terrifying proportions, and the difference of a single bit of clothing.

Harry glanced toward Hermione and saw her watching from the corner of her eye. He was almost tempted to ask her to turn around, but that would be silly. She'd just turn back around and see it all anyway. Still, it felt oddly like he was going to be judged or evaluated once he had nothing left to hide behind.

With a deep breath to steel his courage, Harry dropped his boxers and was standing in all his bare glory in the middle of the woods. The rather cold forest, he noticed with a shiver.

"Okay… now, uh…" Hermione flicked darting glances at him from the corner of her eye, trying to talk to him without looking at him but trying not to _look_ like that's what she was doing. It was jarring and distracting and Harry sighed in resignation. "It's all right, Hermione, you can look."

Hermione took in deep breath and turned to face him. She locked her gaze on his face at first, almost fiercely determined to meet him eye to eye, but it seemed she was unable to help the swift glance down. Her eyes flew back up quickly, but not before Harry felt like a specimen in one of Hagrid's classes. "Go… uh… stand. In the middle, there."

Harry nodded and stepped into the pentagram on the ground, painfully conscious of the view of his backside Hermione was getting. Turning back around to face her wasn't much better.

Hermione approached Harry where he stood in the star and stopped just inches from him. Harry almost drew back, self-conscious and twitchy, but Hermione mustered a smile that did wonders to help ease some of his crushing humiliation. She dipped the tip of her wand into the remaining grey potion in his token jar. When the wand came in contact with the liquid the points of the pentagram glowed brighter and the encased potion became luminescent. Hermione pulled out the wand, tipped in glowing potion, glanced up into Harry's face, then ran the tip of her wand down the center of his chest, tracing his sternum. Harry jumped, nervy, and a wave of gooseflesh followed the tip of her wand and spread to the rest of his body. Hermione smiled again at his shiver. "It will focus the power within the frame on you." She stepped out of the pentagram, capped the jar, and said, "Now go into the meditative state you do when you token, but instead of completely voiding your conscious thoughts, concentrate on the spell. Know it."

Harry nodded and closed his eyes. Over the months he'd gotten good at reaching that state of mind quickly, but it took a bit longer to push away his shyness at being nude in front of Hermione. But slowly, that emptiness of thought began to take him. The sounds of the forest grew louder, richer, stronger… it touched his bare skin, seeped into his pores, flowed in the air that passed through his lungs. It grew up from his toes parting the grass, reached down from the stars, swelled with the moon, glowed with its light. He almost gave over entirely to the peace, but like a once-forgotten face refusing to fade from memory, the words of the spell came floating up from the abyss of nature's voice and breath and heart. He could feel the swoop of Hermione's handwriting, then the words on the paper filled his mind, the meaning twined together into incantations, like vines dancing a ladder to the sky. He followed the dancing, the airy waltz. The higher it went, the stronger the night became. Sound assaulted him. Owls hooted like cannon blasts. Crickets chirped like chainsaws. The smell of the forest hit him like a bludger and he was light-headed. It was hard to breathe without falling flat from the air that brought the world with it in explosive, over-powering smells. His skin felt fit to peel free of his flesh to escape the way the light breeze slammed into him. So much assailing him, flying at him, overwhelming him, but none of it was pain. Nothing that hurt more than the shock of experiencing too much. And still he rode the twining vines of the spell, raced it to the moon where the real explosion awaited. He let the words carry him up and up, through the sounds and smells and the air on his body. His heart was racing, pounding like a giant drum in his ears, stretching his veins and arteries to the fullest as blood rushed like water rapids. He was bathing in the light of the moon, it was burning bright like the sun, and he heart was pounding so fast even the sounds of the night were drowned out.

And then he was falling. The ground rushed at him and he caught himself with his hands. The racing and the climbing and the pounding stopped and for a moment Harry didn't dare move until he could sort out where exactly he was. The sounds of the forest, the smell of the dirt and grass just below him, slowly brought it back. Outside. Woods. Hogwarts. Harry breathed in and out quickly, chest heaving. He slowly opened his eyes… and squinted. It was bright out. Had he been flying to the moon until dawn? It hadn't felt that long. The crickets were still singing, the owls still calling… it still sounded like night. And the night was loud. Harry looked up and sought Hermione.

He found her standing a few feet away, looking down at him… and a look of absolute shock on her face.

Harry, confused, moved to stand… but he couldn't. His body wouldn't do it. He took a step forward, hand then foot, and he could move as though on hands and knees, but not standing upright. Baffled, he opened his mouth to call for Hermione's help… and he jumped to the side in surprise when instead of his voice an animal cry came forth in its place. Harry blinked up at Hermione, now truly on the path to panicked.

Hermione moved toward him… he had to look up at her, he wasn't taller than her now, only half as tall as she was. As though aware of his discomfort, when she was directly in front of him she dropped to her knees… and gazed at him in wonder.

"_Harry_…" she said, and Harry perked up at her voice. He could still hear fine. There were tones and pitches to her voice, layers and nuances buried that he'd never noticed before, but it was hers. And how he could _smell_ her, even though she was across from him. It was as though she was in the crook of his shoulder.

"Harry… you _did_ it!"

Harry stared at her.

Hermione beamed, overjoyed, then she hesitated when she noticed his disquiet. "Can you understand me?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer that he could but a mewl resulted instead and he grimaced in frustration. He looked at her again, distraught, and gave an awkward nod.

Hermione, thankfully, accepted that poor response. "Harry… the animagus transformation… _you did it_!"

Harry looked down at his hands splayed on the ground… and spat when he saw black paws instead of hands.

"It's okay, Harry… stay calm." Harry looked back up at her, irate at the suggestion he should stay calm. Hermione's voice was soft and soothing when she said, "This is what we were trying to do, remember? I can only imagine what a shock is it, but it's all right. And please, stop snarling at me."

Harry curbed his annoyance and it must have worked, he could fee his mouth relax, and Hermione looked less tense. Once the initial shock was over, Harry realized that he wasn't in any kind of pain. His body felt different, moved and responded to him differently, but it still obeyed him. In fact, when he lingered on the sensations of his new form, he felt strong.

"You're _beautiful_," Hermione breathed, and Harry turned his attention back to her. Hermione still looked absolutely astounded as she studied him. She reached forward to touch him, stopped short, and dropped her hand to her lap.

Harry wouldn't mind being touched. It might help settle him. Hermione was always good at doing that. Harry stepped closer to Hermione and dropped his head toward her lap, inviting her to touch him… or so he hoped.

She apparently understood, because her hand came to rest atop his head and Harry closed his eyes. It was nice.

"Wow…" she petted him, head to shoulders again and again, and Harry stepped in closer to her, his terror and displaced fury melting away. "Shall I… would you like me to describe what you look like?"

Harry looked up at her and very tentatively placed one of his large paws in her lap. He sat back on his haunches in front of her and waited.

"You're a cat. A very large black panther. Your eyes are the same color, in fact, against the black, they look quite striking. And here," her fingers traced his brow over his right eye, "a white lightning-shaped mark. This is incredible. I am so proud of you, Harry. Now the only thing left is to manage to change back."

Harry drew his paw from Hermione's lap and found the vines, still twisting in the back of his mind. This time the spell led him down, back to earth, and he closed his eyes to follow it. It spiraled away from the moon, out of the light, out of the orchestra of sound, away from the jubilee of smells, fell from the sky. His body weight shifted under him, his balance tipped, and when he lurched and nearly fell over Hermione caught him. He opened his eyes to the darkness of the middle of the night and blurted, "Hermione!"

Hermione squeezed his shoulder. "Harry! Oh, thank Merlin. That was going to be the tougher of the two, coming back, but you managed fantastically! I knew you could do it. You're officially an animagus now, Harry!"

Harry pulled awkwardly away from Hermione and looked down at his hands. Human hands again. He shuffled to sit more comfortably on the ground before her and ran his hands through his hair.

"What was it like?" Hermione asked eagerly, leaning in toward him.

"Weird. Loud. And bright." Harry rubbed his bare arms with his hands. "But it felt… amazing, too. I felt _powerful_."

Hermione was practically buzzing. "That would be the strength of your animal form. A panther! Imagine everything you'll gain from an animagus form like that." Hermione was off in her own world, running through the myriad possibilities, and Harry took the opportunity to kip over to his pile of clothes and quickly dress. When he was clothed once more he turned to see Hermione still on the ground as he'd left her, staring off into the forest, lost in thought.

Harry smiled, finding himself in a considerably better mood after changing back. He went to her side and touched her shoulder. "Come on, Hermione. We came out here for you to do it, too."

Hermione seemed to jolt at the suggestion, then she stammered. "Oh… yes, right." Harry took her hand and hauled her to her feet. When they were more on a level, he could see in her face her doubts.

"You can do this, Hermione, I know you can."

Hermione gave a wane smile and ducked her head. "I don't know, Harry… I'm not so good at going on reflex. From the start this was more fit to you than me. We have to face the possibility I may not be able to do it."

Harry touched her chin and tipped her head up to force her to meet his eyes. She reluctantly looked at him and Harry offered her an encouraging smile. "Don't start doubting yourself. I haven't gone through anything in this whole process that you didn't experience, too. The tokens, the dreams, the spellwork… if it worked for me there's no reason at this point it shouldn't work for you."

Hermione nodded and sucked in a deep breath, clearly trying to work up her own sense of capability. She looked back at him, this time more determined than uncertain. It was typical, tenacious Hermione Granger that asked, "Anything I should know?"

Harry thought a moment. "If it works, the first few seconds when you're not human it's _really_ disorienting."

"Right. I better set up my frame."

As Hermione drew her own jar of token potion from her bag Harry saw that his own pentagram was no longer a glowing shape on the forest floor. His tokens were abandoned bits of debris on the ground. Hedwig's feather skittered away over the grass on a wind. While Hermione drew out her own shape a short distance away, Harry went to his piles of tokens and kicked them away so they no longer mapped out the shape of a pentagram. It didn't take him long, yet when he turned back to Hermione she was finished placing her tokens at the points of the star. Hermione had had fewer tokens to set up. It was glowing as his had, though perhaps not as brightly as Harry's. He assumed it was the difference in the number of tokens.

Hermione stepped back from the shape on the ground as Harry came up beside her. She turned to him and handed him the jar of potion. "Here… you'll need to draw the focal line on me with your wand like I did for you." She looked long and hard at the pentagram awaiting her, then with a resolute look on her face slipped off her shoes and dropped her wand.

Hermione had given Harry at least the imitation of consideration for his modesty when he'd been undressing moments ago. She'd pretended she wasn't watching him even though she had been. Maybe it was the residual effect of the transformation, maybe his brain was a bit addled, maybe he was just not as decent as Hermione, but Harry couldn't find the discipline to extend Hermione the same courtesy as she disrobed. She tugged her shirt up over her head and Harry openly watched, in truth unable to look away.

Hermione undressed and Harry shifted as she dropped one article of clothing after another to the ground. Last to go was her knickers, which she slipped off like it was nothing, an afterthought. She turned to him and he was floored. Harry could hardly breathe. He gaped at her, her body painted and shaped by the moonlight, moving and silvering her skin, shining darkly in her hair that spilled past her shoulders. How she could want to be anything but the lovely thing in front of him right then was beyond his comprehension. She was beyond incredible. A compulsion rose in him to touch her. He wanted to touch her everywhere the moonlight did. He wanted the places the moonlight missed for himself.

"Harry?"

Harry jerked from his reeling thoughts and met Hermione's eyes. The jump of his eyes up from down was the only proof he had that he'd not looked above her neck once before she called his name. Harry blushed. He felt guilty at first, but Hermione's expression when she stood facing him, bare to him in the moonlight, was a bit shy and embarrassed but not angry for his wandering gaze. He was astounded that she'd allow what he'd done, but she had.

Hermione gave him a small, mysterious half-smile, then turned and stepped into the center of her glowing pentagram. Harry watched her, mesmerized.

Hermione turned back to him and said, "Mark me."

Harry blinked a moment, then remembered the potion in his hand. With a gruff clearing of his throat, he took out his wand and approached Hermione. The nearer he drew, the more his heart hammered, the hotter the night seemed, the more beautiful she became. He stopped in front of her and stared down at her. Belatedly, he dipped the tip of his wand into the potion and watched it begin to glow.

When he drew his wand out and looked again at Hermione her eyes were downcast but she turned her eyes up to look at him through her eyelashes. Harry caught his breath and slowly drew the tip of his wand down the center of her chest. It seemed to take a supreme effort for him to back away when he was done. Hermione watched him intently as he left, favored him with a slow, unnamable smile, then she closed her eyes.

Harry put the potion away and stood there quietly watching Hermione trying to reach another state of mind. He used the time to attempt to get a hold of himself, but it was challenging. Hermione was still a vision of beauty in front of him. And with her eyes closed, her attention elsewhere, it was just too easy to stare. To study and memorize and notice so many things a friend should never notice.

It felt like an hour before there was any change. Suddenly, Hermione gasped. Her breathing accelerated. Her eyelids fluttered and her expression changed from blissfully untroubled to torn. She staggered and cried out. Harry jumped forward just as Hermione began to fall. She twisted in midair. Her small hands reached out to break her fall… they broke it in the form of sandy brown paws. Her legs folded under her, cushioned the blow when she hit the ground as tawny hindquarters. Her lovely flesh turned golden, smooth skin roughened by a coat of short fur. Her hair wrapped around her neck, her shoulders buckled under the burden of holding her own weight as bone and muscle shifted… Hermione fell to the ground on her side. When she came to rest, at last, on the forest floor it was not in the form of a witch. Harry stopped in his tracks and gazed down at the lanky form of a lioness.

Hermione opened her eyes, dark brown as they were in her human form, and she caught sight of Harry right away. She scrambled to her feet and wobbled as though punch drunk. Harry knelt before her, remembering how comforting it had been to have her on level with him when he'd become a cat. He gaped at Hermione's new shape. She was sleek and powerful-looking on sight. There was no mistaking her animagus form; a large lioness. She had a chestnut-brown half-mane mostly on the underside of her throat, such as young male lion might have, but in Hermione it reflected in animal form her characteristic wild hair as a human.

Hermione stood with legs braced apart and panted, her eyes locked on Harry with a wild light of fear glinting in the moonlight. "Hermione?"

She took a step toward him and looked down at her front paw. She seemed to take a moment to take stock. Panic seemed to give way to curiosity. She turned her head to look back at her body. She flicked her tail, experimenting, studying, exploring. Harry had to chuckle. Hermione looked back at him and yawned, baring long, intimidating canines. Not that Harry was afraid of her. Hermione crossed the remaining distance between them and blatantly stuck her nose in his face and sniffed. Harry smiled and tangled his fingers in her mane. Hermione met his eyes, and there was no mistake. It was Hermione behind them.

"I told you it was amazing, didn't I?" Harry asked in an awed voice.

Hermione shoved her head against his chest and it knocked him back. He laughed out loud. He ended up flat on his back with Hermione straddling him, standing over him and looking down at him with intent feline eyes. Harry still had his hands buried in her mane.

Hermione licked her lips and Harry watched, astounded, as the lithe cat above him changed into the girl he'd known since he was eleven. The hands he'd had in her mane became entangled in her hair when she transformed back. Hermione lost her balance and crashed down on top of him. Harry's laughter stopped abruptly as Hermione collapsed on top of him, completely naked, but Hermione was giggling too wildly to notice. "Harry! _I did it_! Oh, wow, it _was_ incredible! You were right. I was a lion, wasn't I?"

"Uh… yeah…" Harry shifted underneath her as she wiggled in excitement.

Hermione leapt off of him and stood, brazen and bare, in the moonlight. Harry sighed tensely with mixed relief and disappointment when she got off of him. "Can you believe that we're both cats? And not just housecats either, mind you, but you a panther and me a lion? What are the _chances_? Astronomical, but there's no question now! We're animagi, Harry!"

Harry climbed to his feet and brushed off his pants. "Pretty amazing."

Hermione whirled to face him. She was beaming, absolutely radiant with triumph. "Don't you realize how astounding this is? I really thought we might have to try a couple of full moons before we did it, and I wasn't even sure I'd ever change. And neither of us had any trouble changing back. That's the trickiest part of the transformation, and we both did it without a bit of trouble. I'm so happy I could just scream!" Hermione laughed and launched herself at Harry, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug.

Harry whimpered. "Uh… Hermione? Think you could put your clothes back on?"

Hermione tensed and jumped back from him, face dark with color. "Oh… I'm sorry, Harry, I… can you believe I forgot I was naked?" She laughed nervously at herself and went to fetch her clothes. Harry bit back commenting on the fact that he'd certainly not forgotten she was nude, not for a second.

By the time she'd dressed she had calmed down and things were back to some semblance of normal.

"What now?" Harry asked.

Hermione dispersed her own tokens and turned to regard him thoughtfully. "We'll have to find time to learn what we can do in our animagi forms. And now that our bodies know how to do it, changing will be much easier to do, so we can begin to work on transforming physical things with us. Namely our clothes and our wands." Hermione turned her gaze up to the moon and she narrowed her eyes. "For tonight we should probably head back to the castle. Wouldn't want to push ourselves too hard the first time."

Harry retrieved the invisibility cloak and they started back together. When they reached the tree line Harry covered them in the cloak and tugged Hermione tight to his side with an arm around her waist as they had when leaving the castle. The halls were just as deserted on the return trip as they'd been when they left, with not a trace of Mister Flitch or Missus Norris to be seen. It was a night of good fortune all around, it would seem. The fat lady looked bewildered to have midair provide the proper password, but sleepy and bleary-eyed she dutifully swung open and in short order they were safely back in the common room. There, with a shared, thrilled smile, they grudgingly parted company.

Harry climbed the stairs carefully back up to the boys' dorm room and slipped inside. He stashed his cloak, changed his clothes, and crawled into bed without a sound. The night had been so full and his mind was so preoccupied on his and Hermione's accomplishment that Harry didn't even notice that Ron wasn't snoring.


	30. Chapter 30

It was a rotten kind of day before Ron even rolled out of bed in the morning. By the time he got up and dressed Dean, Seamus, and Neville were already downstairs in the Great Hall, no doubt happily tucked into their breakfast. Harry, apparently, was having a lie in, as he was still sound asleep when Ron was set to head downstairs. Ron resented him immensely for it. He was tempted to throw something at his once best friend to end his comfy little doze, but Ron didn't fancy having to deal with him once Harry woke. Just as like it would lead to some really unpleasant row, and Ron didn't fancy insults for breakfast. So Ron silently scowled his heart out at Harry instead and left the boys' dorm… just as Hermione, dressed for the day, was bounding up the stairs.

"Oh! Morning, Ron," she greeted him in passing, absently, all too eager to hurry past him in her bloody rush to get up to Harry. She acted like there wasn't a damn thing wrong with her just barging right into the boys' dorm room. And she stepped past him with that mere off-hand hello, as though it wasn't colored a thousand shades of buggered. She wasn't even sorry or ashamed. He resented her for that. Maybe not as much as he resented Harry, but Hermione had earned her share of it, the way Ron figured.

They both should have bloody well told him. No, they shouldn't have done it in the first place, but at the _least_ they should have had the decency to _tell_ him. Not that it would have changed anything, Ron would still be spitting furious at the both of them for the whole mess, but it would have been the friend thing to do.

Some bloody good friends he turned out to have.

Ron shoved his way into the space on the Gryffindor table next to Seamus that was hardly wide enough for Colin Creevey to squeeze into, let alone Ron's larger frame. Ron had taken to spending his free time with Seamus and Dean, but oftentimes it hardly seemed they wanted him around. Assumed he belonged in another lot, most like, and Ron was mad at Harry and Hermione for that, too. He couldn't fit in properly with anyone else because of that stupid 'Hogwarts trio' label the three of them seemed to carry. Like Ron couldn't expect a place outside of Harry and Hermione's clemency.

'Well, they can just go screw themselves,' Ron thought lividly. When the double entendre of his own thoughts clicked he took it out on his bacon. Seamus noticed Ron then, once the redhead was flaying his bacon with a vengeance.

Ron seemed cursed to look up from his plate of shredded pig-meat at the very moment that Harry and Hermione came down to the Great Hall. Together.

The only spot open enough for the both of them to sit next to one another, because Merlin forbid they have to part for the duration of breakfast, was unfortunately close to where Ron had weaseled his way on to the bench. He had a floor seat to the whole repugnant Harry and Hermione show.

Ron hated how he couldn't turn off the masochistic side of him that made him notice every ugly detail. How Harry's hand strayed to Hermione's shoulder just there, how the moony-eyed sappy girls up and down Gryffindor table sighed like it was so ruddy romantic, how Harry leaned in toward her to reach for the eggs when he could and _should_ have asked her to pass them, how Hermione _smiled_ at him. Ron threw down his fork with a clatter and gulped down a good amount of pumpkin juice like it was last call. He had to make a supreme effort not to acknowledge the bewildered looks from the guilty parties in question when he brought down his cup. Last thing he wanted was to explain himself to Harry and Hermione. Beside him, Seamus was jinxing a link of sausage to take flight and beat a deserving Slytherin about the head. Ron feigned interest. It was someplace else for Ron to look but at Harry and Hermione, at least until they forgot about him again. Which took all of three seconds.

And to top off breakfast, the insult to a morning of injuries, Ginny had to butt in.

"Morning, gorgeous! Don't you look tussled. Long night?" she leveled that smile at Harry, the one Ron had seen Ginny use on the dragon-keepers in Romania. The one that made his skin crawl and his blood boil with brotherly ire. How _dare_ his sister know she was a girl and doubly how dare she _use_ it. And worst of all, directed at _Harry_. Ron would almost prefer Ginny fawn over Draco Malfoy. _Almost_.

The fact that Harry was not affected in the way Ginny aimed to affect him, but instead was thoroughly uncomfortable, regretfully didn't take the bitter sting out of his sister's solicitous attentions toward Harry. Odd, that. "Umm… just studying," Harry stammered an answer.

"Mmmm hmmm… and what exactly would you be studying there, Harry?" Ginny teased and looked pointedly toward Hermione. Hermione very nearly smirked.

Ron didn't get it. Hermione used to bristle when Ginny put her moves on Harry, but lately it was like it was some big joke between them. Hermione was completely unbothered by it, and that made it loads worse. Somehow. It just did.

"Potions. And a bit of spell work," Hermione answered easily. Ron had never realized just how accomplished and flawless Hermione could be at lying before. It was depressing if he thought on it too hard. Just when he thought he knew his friends they proved him dead wrong. Five years of friendship, and for what?

"Aww, sounds a dreadful ordeal," Ginny crooned sympathetically and reached across the table to pat Harry's hand. Harry jumped slightly and drew back… away from Ginny, toward Hermione.

Ron had had enough. He rose from the table and marched up to where Ginny sat. "Let's go," he said gruffly and grabbed her by the arm.

"Hey!" Ginny snapped indignantly, and he knew he was in for ten rounds with the infamous Weasley woman wrath, but if he got to vent a little first it would be worth it. Ron dragged Ginny away from the Gryffindor table, out of the Great Hall, and only turned her loose once they were in the corridor.

Ginny faced him angrily, eyes blazing and mouth pinched in righteous fury. "What is _wrong_ with you, Ronald? How dare you man-handle me like that!"

"Oh, you're one to talk!" Ron said hotly.

"And _what_ does that mean?" Ginny asked in a low, dangerous voice. In their mother, it would be the cue to take flight. Run far and fast. Luckily, Ginny had a bit more experience to put under her belt before she could make men cower like that… but sadly she didn't lack much. Ginny had done a lot of growing over the past summer, it seemed. Apparently everyone had, and none of it had been for the better in Ron's opinion.

"Don't even pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about, _Ginerva_! The way you're all over Harry, flirting with him like some Quidditch groupie, it's _disgusting_. I'm warning you, stop it right now."

"Or what?" Ginny scowled at him a moment, expression borderline to murderous, then she spoke again, a little less volatile this time, "I'm just having a bit of fun. There's no harm in it."

"What do you hope to get out of this? Harry's not going to fall for your tart act. It may have worked for those mutton-head dragon-keepers of yours, but Harry's too smart to be taken in by it." Ron could not believe, in the interest of arguing with his sister, he'd vouch for Harry's honor and integrity. Seemed old habits died hard when it came down to it. Either that, or Ron was so dead set on knocking down his sister that, for the moment, the issues he had with Harry were less important.

"_Tart_?!" Ginny screeched, "I have absolutely no interest in Harry, you enormous twit!"

Right. And Filch wasn't a prick nor Snape a greasy-haired cur. "Come on, none of us are going to believe that. You've had a crush on Harry for years."

Ginny folded her arms in front of her chest. "I did have, I admit that, but that was a long time ago. I'm over it now. Harry's more like a brother to me, and at times a sight better brother than you are, I might add."

Even by the standards of his crummy day so far, that hurt. "So you want me to buy that you're not hoping Harry will hook up with you from all these little games you're putting on?"

Ginny smiled then, crooked and sagely, almost like Ron was being childishly naïve without the slightest awareness of his naïveté, "Please, he is _so_ Hermione's."

Ron stood speechless, gaping at his impudent little sister. How she could just _say_ it, like _that_… His face grew hot and his temples pounded in time with his pulse. He could only imagine how many vivid shades of scarlet he'd turned. And still he couldn't manage to say anything. Nothing to throw back at Ginny's remark, at how she dare to say that so confidently, like it was some bloody _law_. Harry was Hermione's. Hermione's, so _obviously_ hers. Like he would be daft not to know that.

While he stood there flummoxed and struck dumb, Ginny turned and left. Maybe to flirt more with Harry, but not to try and win him, because _apparently_ he _belonged_ to Hermione. Ron could not imagine anything more unsavory just then as going back into the Great Hall and watching Harry and Hermione. Hermione being possessive of Harry, Harry playing the part of the taken all too happily.

Ron turned and headed in the opposite direction of the Great Hall on an empty stomach.

Missing breakfast, usually on the top of the list of Ron's unforgivable misdeeds, did nothing for his mood through the rest of the school day. His classes were a write-off; he couldn't concentrate on the professors to save his life, which was horribly unfortunate in Defense Against the Dark Arts because the things learned in that class _might_ save his life. It didn't help that he had all his classes with Harry and Hermione that day; he couldn't even be lucky enough for it to be one of the days when he and Harry had Divination while Hermione took Arithmancy. No. He had to watch them sit together, whisper during class to one another, leave together. Everything to-bloody-gether.

He thought the end of classes that afternoon would be a reprieve. Harry and Hermione would steal away somewhere together, most likely the library, which made them easy to avoid. Ron wouldn't have to see their togetherness and resent being strung along and _not told_. It was the only hope of respite Ron had. Harry and Hermione would be tucked away in some dusty old books doing things Ron hated to imagine, and he could hang out with his new best buds Dean and Seamus.

But as cruel fate would have it, even that blew up in his freckled face.

Seamus had picked up a juicy piece of gossip, and as it involved the opposite sex he was on it like a dog with a bone.

"I'm telling you, I have it on good authority."

Ron was walking along behind Dean and Seamus, who were moving side by side a pace ahead of him. Ron seemed to end up in the back, the tag-along. He blamed Harry and Hermione for that too, just for good measure.

The three were heading down the corridor toward the common room after a jaunt to the Quidditch pitch to watch the Ravenclaws practicing for the upcoming game. Ravenclaw had four girls on the team, including Cho Chang, which explained Seamus's avid spectatorship.

Ron was only half-listening to Seamus as he skulked along behind the pair. He might like a pretty bird as much as the next bloke, but Seamus never seemed to think of anything else. At least Ron could enjoy the Quidditch for the practice and not just the bums sitting the brooms.

Dean snorted. "And _who_ exactly is good authority for a rumor like that?"

"Justin told me, and he was told by Oliver Wood, who heard it from Lavender since they're snog-partners now, who got it from Parvati. It's true! I'm telling you. Those girls' showers are common just like the boys'. Another girl would know."

Ron might not be slavering at the mouth like Seamus, but girls' showers… well, nothing wrong with at least paying attention to what they were talking about. It was the polite thing to do, and all.

Dean was still skeptical. "I say it's bollocks. The shape of a snitch?"

Seamus shook his head and laid the back of his hand against Dean's shoulder. "No, no, man, a bird. Though I suppose the two look enough alike that you could call it a snitch. Ha! Wouldn't that be something, what with Harry being a seeker and all."

Ron was immediately alert against his wishes, even as his temper stirred and his stomach soured. It all came back to Harry Potter, didn't it?

The three of them were at the fat lady and Dean turned to Seamus. "I'm not about to believe that Hermione Granger has a birthmark shaped like a bird _or_ a snitch on her hip."

Seamus waved his hand dismissively and gave the portrait the password.

Ron scowled and couldn't help but blurt out as they stepped through the entrance to the common room. "She most certainly does _not_."

Seamus looked back at Ron. "Oh, and how would you know?"

Ron felt his face burning again. "I just would. She's my friend."

"So that means you'd know all her birthmarks? I don't think so." As they came into the common room proper, Ron knew his day was at the pinnacle of crappy when he caught sight of a familiar mop of unruly black hair on the couch.

Seamus spotted him, too. "We can ask Harry! Hey, Harry! Does Hermione have a bird-shaped birthmark on her hip?"

Ron could have choked on his own tongue with rage.

Harry didn't look up from the book in his lap at first, instead answered coolly without bothering to turn in their direction, "No. But if she did, I wouldn't tell you." Harry turned his head to look toward Seamus and Dean… and he noticeably paused when he caught sight of Ron.

Ron was seeing red.

Dean punched Seamus in the arm. "Told you."

"Drat," Seamus moped, the wind taken from his sails, "well, maybe they meant Parvati has a birthmark. Or maybe it was someone that was talking about getting a tattoo." Dean and Seamus headed toward the tower stairs but Ron hung back. He could throttle Harry then and there, the foul git! _Hermione's hip_!

"Ron?" Harry asked warily.

"_You bloody bastard_!" It exploded out of him, the fury that had been festering and burning in him for weeks. It felt good to finally lash out at the rightful target.

Harry's expression slowly hardened. "Excuse me?"

Ron could feel himself shaking. "You heard me! You dirty, bloody, filthy _bastard_!"

Harry set his book aside and stood.

Angelina, working on her homework at a desk in the common room, hissed, "_Shhhh_!" at them.

Harry looked first to Angelina, then to Ron, then said, "Why don't we take this outside?"

"Yes, do!" Angelina snapped.

"Yes, _let's_," Ron returned hotly and turned sharply. He marched out, not even bothering to see if Harry was following him. If not, he'd just come back in and have it out with him in the common room again, because it was past time that Ron gave Harry what he deserved. This was damn well due.

Ron didn't stop until he was outside, close to one of the castle's great stone walls sporting an elegant row of colorful stained glass windows. There were some other students lounging about outside, Ron caught sight of Neville studying what looked to him like a common weed, but Ron wasn't concerned about anyone else. He was only interested in one Harry Potter, former best friend.

Ron spun around and was gratified to see that Harry was there, had indeed followed Ron to take his licks. Though he didn't look that concerned, which infuriated Ron even further. So he was harmless, full of hot air Ron Weasley, was he? The _nerve_ of Harry.

"All right, now why am I a bastard?" Harry asked evenly.

"A _bloody_ bastard! And you know why!"

Harry shook his head and held up his hands in feigned ignorance.

"How could you? How could you and not _tell me_?!"

Harry paused and for a moment actually looked uncomfortable. Caught out. Guilty. Ron knew it. "Do what?"

"_Hook up with Hermione, of course_!"

Harry blinked and went from defensive to puzzled. "What?! Ron… I'm _not_ dating Hermione."

"Stop lying to me, Harry!" Ron screamed, and then it all just flooded out of him, the cracked dam finally blowing apart. "Why _her_? Damnit, of all the girls you could have chased, _why Hermione_?! You _knew_ I fancied her, why couldn't you leave her be? You could have picked anyone but her!"

"I'm not with her!" Harry snapped back.

"_Everyone_ knows you are, what do you take me for, an idiot? Poor stupid Ronald Weasley, is that it? You should have told me! Least save me making a complete fool of myself thinking I had half a chance."

"Half a chance to what?" Harry stepped closer to Ron, and Ron cursed himself when he took a reflexive step back. He moved forward again to stand his ground, though he felt the bulk of the damage was done for his momentary retreat. He'd just have to make up for it with volume when he got another word in. But Harry was fanned to fighting form now, and Ron would have to wait. "For the last time," Harry growled, "_I'm not dating Hermione_, but whether I was or not, it wouldn't make any difference to you. You don't deserve her!"

Ron itched to draw his wand. How he'd love to hex Harry into the hospital wing.

"You're _awful_ to Hermione," Harry said tersely, quickly growing just as heated and incensed as Ron. Clearly a button had been pushed. "I've never met _anyone_ who can make Hermione cry like you do, and Hermione isn't the type to cry. You're just that good at hurting her feelings. What makes you think she could ever be happy with you?"

"That… what… that's not fair! I…" Ron stammered for a retort. So he and Hermione liked to banter about, and so maybe he was just a little better at it, but that didn't mean he didn't like her! Harry _knew_ that, so why try and make Ron feel like he was a heel for a little harmless fun?

"What's not fair is the way you take advantage of her, treat her like rubbish, when you would call yourself her _friend_."

"Oh, you're one to talk about taking advantage of her, you prick! After all, you're the bloody one shagging her senseless, not me!"

Ron didn't see it coming, felt only the explosion of pain on his lip and his head snap back. He fell to the ground in a startled heap. He tasted the copper of blood in his mouth and brought up a hand to his face. He hissed at the sharp pain in his split lip. His fingers came away streaked with red. It took that long for it to register what had happened. Harry had decked him. Harry, his once best friend, had punched him.

Ron, enraged and seconds from an all-out duel, looked up at Harry…

… and he froze. Harry was breathing heavily as he stood towering over Ron, hands clenched into fists. It was hard to forget that Harry was stronger now, not the scrawny little unwanted, neglected nephew he once was. Watching Harry quiver with anger, his eyes fiery with rage, his mouth set in a savage line… it made one remember that Harry had survived the killing curse. Twice. That he'd seen a comrade die right in front of his eyes. That he'd taken up his wand against Voldemort himself. That he was, within his own rights, one of the most powerful wizards for his age the world had ever seen.

Ron realized he was genuinely afraid.

There was a surge, a magical tidal wave front that swept over Ron and sent goose bumps prickling over his skin and set his heart to hammering. The grounds seemed to go deathly silent, all hitched on an inhaled breath. Harry's eyes were pinned on Ron's sprawled form, holding him immobile with just that piercing stare. The magical force burgeoning around them thrummed dangerously, pulsed and surged. Three of the stained glass windows behind Harry shattered outward in a savage explosion of blue, green, red, and yellow glistening shards.

Somewhere, it seemed a million miles away, someone screamed.

Ron shrank back from Harry. There was an aura about him. Powerful…primal… feral… lethal. It was like being in the sights of a predator, bending to the understanding a heartbeat before death that he was helpless prey. Ron was terrified.

Then the tension was broken when a third person rushed into the stand-off between Harry and Ron.

"_Harry_!" Hermione ran right up to Harry, mindless of the treacherous magic that seemed fit to tear apart anything in its path. Namely Ron. She stepped between Ron and Harry, placed her hands on Harry's chest, and pushed him back. "Stop it, don't hurt him, Harry!"

Harry seemed to snap out of it at that. The magical storm thick around them dissipated like a fickle summer wind. Harry blinked and relented with a step backward. Hermione followed, kept her hands on him as though to restrain him from trying to side-step her. Not that he tried. Harry looked content to be stilled by Hermione's mere touch.

Ron could have kissed Hermione for intervening, but he wasn't about to tempt Harry's wrath further. He scrambled to his feet and stood facing his two former friends. His mind was reeling trying to grasp what had just happened, what had nearly happened, how it had come to such a state. He'd just been having a little argument with his friend, but it hadn't ended that way, and in those first seconds after the disaster was averted he couldn't fathom _how_.

Hermione was not so dumbstruck. She whirled around to face Ron. "Now _what_ is going on? Neville came and told me you two were having a row, but this is more than a little friendly spat! What did you do?"

Muted dumb moment broken. Ron gaped indignantly. "_Me_?! Why do you assume this is _my_ fault?"

Hermione was in no mood for the blame game. She'd as well as made up her mind who was responsible, despite the fact only one of them was bleeding and it damn well wasn't Harry. And what more could Ron expect than for her to take her _boyfriend's_ side. "I just wanted the truth, Hermione. From the both of you. I'd think after four years I'd have earned that much."

Hermione was confused, but Harry said from over her shoulder, "I _told_ you the truth! You should believe me. You should have believed me about the Goblet of Fire!"

Tense quiet reigned again. Ron felt abashed. Harry hadn't forgiven him for the stupid Goblet of Fire incident yet. Well, what was he to think when Harry got picked to be a champion? And he'd come around to accepting Harry's word after the dragons, hadn't he? Apparently that didn't count for much with bloody Harry Potter.

"The truth about what?" Hermione asked cautiously, her voice almost small against the enormous energy, though interpersonal as opposed to magical, that seemed to enclose the three.

Harry just stared hard at Ron.

"You and Harry," Ron said haltingly. Hermione frowned. "About you two being together."

Understanding lit her eyes, she went from confused to weary, and she sighed. "Ron… Harry and I _aren't_ together. We're just friends."

"But—"

Hermione nodded. "I know all about the rumors, but they're just _rumors_. Honestly, Ron, you're our friend, don't you think we would have told you if Harry and I had decided to start seeing each other?"

Ron was absolutely embarrassed and put in his place with that plainly put question. Yes, precisely that. He would have expected to be told. Exactly as Hermione put it. Apparently, had there been anything to tell he would have heard about it. Ron hesitantly looked past Hermione's shoulder to glance at Harry. The rage was gone from Harry's face, but not the anger that had clearly been so close to the surface.

Ron was only beginning to understand how badly he'd fouled things up.

"_What is the meaning of all of this_?!"

All three teens turned to see Professor McGonagall hurrying across the yard toward them. When she reached them she looked at Ron's bloody lip, at Hermione standing strategically between Harry and Ron, then at the broken glass littering the ground. "I heard you two were near set to kill one another! I was sure it was an exaggeration, but to see it with my own eyes… to think such disgraceful behavior could come from a Gryffindor! Explain yourselves!"

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip uneasily. Harry looked about at the mess of the windows he'd made, as though only then realizing what his uncontrolled magic had done. Ron had to do something to try and put things right after the botch job he'd made of everything.

"It was a misunderstanding, Professor," Ron said slowly. "I… I thought Harry was lying to me. But he wasn't, I was wrong."

"We're really sorry it got so out of hand," Harry added.

McGonagall looked between the three, eyes sharp for any waver in their stance. "Well, I should think so. Which one of you did this?" she gestured at the scattered bits of glass.

Harry ducked his head. "That was me, Professor. I didn't mean to. Ron and I were arguing. I was angry and they just broke."

For a brief moment, McGonagall looked preoccupied with the confession. She plainly glanced at Harry's untouched wand peeking out from the inner front pocket of his Hogwarts robes. Then she turned to Ron and a great measure of the venom was gone from her voice. "You should count yourself lucky that Mister Potter took it out on the windows and not you, Mister Weasley."

She had no idea how lucky he felt for that.

The transfiguration teacher drew her wand and cast a _reparo_ spell that sent the bits of glass flying from the ground and back to their proper windows. The stained-glass designs clicked back in place like a self-solving puzzle and then, with a racing glow along the crack lines with unflawed glass left in its wake, the windows were good as new. McGonagall turned her attention back to her students. "The lot of you will get detention for this atrocious display, of course," McGonagall stated resolutely.

Harry protested, "But, Professor, Hermione had nothing to do—" but Hermione elbowed him in the ribs and said, "Yes, Professor. We understand."

"And I _never_ want to hear about another fight like this again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," all three said in duly chastised tones.

"I'm taking you to the headmaster," McGonagall tucked away her wand, "he'll no doubt want to have it out with the three of you for this foolishness, and serves you right for this dreadful behavior. Come with me."

Ron glanced quickly at Harry and Hermione before taking the lead on the ponderous march toward Dumbledore's office.

* * *

All in all, they got off lightly. A week of detention with McGonagall after their classes was a fair price to pay for the debacle that could have become of Ron and Harry's row had Hermione not stepped in the middle. Dumbledore gave them a stern talking to about the honor of Gryffindor house and the moral standard expected of each and every Hogwarts student. His speech about sticking together in the face of the danger of Voldemort was the most uncomfortable part of that session, to be sure, because the only thing that could be more distressing than the row itself would have been Voldemort. And of course the fight in the courtyard was the talk of the school by the end of dinner, but Ron considered that all a small price to pay. Things had been said that had been needing to be said for a long time, and at least now they had someplace to start. To where it would lead he couldn't begin to guess, but just the prospect of not being stuck in neutral anymore was a relief.

And he knew now that Harry and Hermione hadn't gotten together behind his back and kept him uninformed. In hindsight, he was ashamed he could ever think so little of his friends. Of Hermione who always did the right thing, no matter how difficult, and Harry who was too honorable for his own good.

Ron was sitting on the edge of his bed that night, already dressed in his pajamas and going over what he wanted to say in his head. He was waiting up for Harry. Dean, Seamus, and Neville were conspicuously absent considering the hour. No doubt they were still walking on eggshells around him and Harry after the scare earlier. Harry's wandless exploding window trick was certainly enough to put anyone a bit on edge. Just as well, Ron didn't fancy an audience for what he wanted to say.

Finally, the boys' dorm door opened and Harry entered. He'd been down in the library with Hermione. Ron believed that and didn't dwell on it further.

Harry saw Ron and visibly hesitated. "Hey."

Ron gave a weak smile. "Hey."

A moment of awkward silence descended.

Harry went to his bed, fished into his chest, and changed into his own pajamas. The silence between them lasted the duration. It took Ron that long to perk up the courage to say, "Hey, Harry?"

Harry, fully clothed for bed, turned carefully to Ron, still leery of where they stood.

Ron swallowed. "I… I'm sorry."

"About?" Harry asked shrewdly, his demeanor still chilly and guarded.

'I deserve that,' Ron thought. Time for him to dig himself out of his own hole. "About everything. About accusing you of hooking up with Hermione and lying to me about it. About not believing you when you said you didn't put your name in the Goblet of Fire. About what I said… about Hermione. About being a prat."

Harry nodded slowly, moved to his own bed, and sat on the edge opposite Ron and looked across at him. Ron watched him cautiously in return. One could have heard a beetle sneeze. It was an uneasy détente, to be sure, but more face-to-face interaction (barring the row that afternoon) than they'd had in over a week.

Ron soldiered on first. "I just… I really fancy her, Harry, and watching you two together…"

"We are closer, yes, but not a couple."

"I know that. Now. And I should have believed you from the first."

Harry just watched Ron. Maybe Ron only saw what he wanted to see, but it looked like Harry was a little less hostile. He hoped that was the case.

Ron glanced down, picked at a loose stitch on his comforter, and cleared his throat. "Did you… did you mean what you said?"

"Which part?"

Ron winced. And he thought the row was tough to manage. "About what you said about me and Hermione."

Harry was unwavering and to-the-point. "About you not deserving her?"

Ron nodded.

"Yes. I did."

Ron looked up at Harry, stunned and wounded. He'd really thought it would be something Harry had said in the heat of the moment. It was the answer he'd been hoping for, at any rate. Instead, he got this.

Harry was unreadable a moment, then he averted his eyes and frowned in thought. At least it made him look like the Harry Ron used to know, even if he dreaded what he was about to say. "Ron… Hermione is the most incredible girl we know. She's the smartest, kindest, bravest, most loyal person I've ever met and I'd wager that you've ever met, too. Bloody Prince William doesn't deserve her."

Ron smirked thinly, if not a little painfully. When Harry put it that way, it was kind of hard to imagine living up to that kind of standard. "Well, I suppose so. She is really something."

A very faint, soft smile ticked at the corners of Harry's mouth before he composed himself and said soberly, "And it came out a little rougher than I meant for it to, but it's true what I said about how you always manage to hurt her feelings. I know you don't mean to do it, but you do just the same. All the time. Hermione deserves better than that; she deserves to be with someone who would never make her cry."

Ron's shoulders slumped and he dropped his gaze to the floor. Harry was damnably right. "Yeah… I… you're right. I don't _mean_ to make her cry, I really don't. I don't _like_ it when she cries."

"I know. She knows. Doesn't mean you can't go on as friends. Just nothing more than that."

This was not how he'd envisioned this conversation going, but it had a far richer ring of truth than all of Ron's half-baked daydreams about finally owning up to his crush on Hermione. "I've just… I've fancied her for so long, Harry, and this year you and Hermione have been so…" Ron found himself balking at trying to describe the change in Harry and Hermione. It would require putting it into ugly, damning words that he'd been trying his best to ignore the entire term. "Well, expect I don't have to tell you how you two've been. It _does_ look like you're… together."

Harry shook his head. "She's very important to me. As a friend. And I won't see anyone hurt her, even you."

Ron nodded. "I can live with that."

Harry eyed Ron closely. "So no more of this jealousy nonsense?"

"No more."

"And what about your intentions toward Hermione?"

Ron paused a little at that. He wondered, fleetingly, where Harry got the right to interrogate him like he was Hermione's father, but figured he'd best answer if he wanted any chance to salvage their friendship. "I can't say I don't still have feelings for her, but I'm not about to cross you to have a try at being with her." Ron said the last with a smile and nervous laugh, attempting a joke, but from the look on Harry's face it was the truth of it. Ron faltered and coughed. "Look, Harry. I care about Hermione, but… well, you're right. I hate to admit it, but you are. Couples shouldn't fight the way she and I do, and if we were together it wouldn't be any different. Maybe I've had it wrong all this time, thinking all our bickering meant she might fancy me, too." Ron grimaced and practically had to steel himself to continue. "She doesn't fight with you, and she's looked the better for it. When I wasn't too angry at you both, I saw it same as everyone else has. Didn't want to, but I did." Ron forced himself to remember the way Hermione had been smiling at Harry lately… smiling a lot. More than Ron could ever remember her smiling. It looked worlds better than when she was in tears, sadly the latter of which Ron knew all about. "You have the right of it, I think, Harry. I wouldn't make her happy." It was hard to admit that, but there was a strange catharsis in it, too. He let go of a hold up he'd clung to for years, and with its absence was a strange new clarity. It was like breaking the water's surface and sucking a great breath of air after struggling underwater for a long time.

It could be different now, different and yet closer to the way it used to be if he'd stop sabotaging them all.

He glanced up at Harry and ventured, "Think Hermione will still be friends with me after the way I've been acting?"

Harry, at last, started to smile at Ron. "Well, another great thing about Hermione… she's also the most forgiving person."

Ron grinned.

Things already felt like they were on the path to returning to normal for the Hogwarts trio. And it was about time.

Harry turned to crawl into bed. Ron's relieved smile fell and he frowned as another nagging thought tugged at him. "Harry? One last thing."

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Ron.

"When Seamus… when he asked you about Hermione's birthmark…" Harry tensed marginally as Ron hesitantly continued, "well… you just sounded like you _knew_." He looked long and hard at Harry, almost loathe to ask the next. He breathed it faintly, as though it would soften the asking. "How?"

Harry didn't answer right away. He got into bed, shimmied under the covers, set about like he was just going to roll over and not answer the question at all, then he said, "The Grangers have a pool. Hermione and I spent a lot of time over the summer swimming. She had a bikini bathing suit."

"Oh." Ron wanted to ask more, wanted to dig and pry and learn a great deal more about Harry and Hermione's friendship-transforming summer, but in a supreme gesture of trust he went to bed himself without breathing a word of doubt to Harry's explanation.


	31. Chapter 31

A/N: In case it hasn't already become painfully obvious, I hate Ron. Hate him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I know some of you think I've been harsh with his character, but trust me, not nearly as vicious as I'd like to be. This A/N was just to reach out to those Ron fans in the audience with this: sorry, but really, I can't stand the guy.

For perspective, this chapter begins on page 225 in my writing program.

* * *

While Harry dressed in the predawn hour a pair of steady cat eyes followed his every move. So early, the only movement in the boys' dorm room was Harry bustling about in the darkness putting on his exercise clothes and the almost metronome-like back and forth flick of the cat's tail.

Harry was kneeling on the floor tying up his trainers when the cat acting as both alarm clock and watchman grew impatient and let out a meow. In the comparative silence of the room, it may as well have been a raucous roar.

"Shh…" Harry chided, but he wasn't actually upset or annoyed. He was in too good a mood to be grumpy about possibly waking his roommates. The cat's near-black eyes met Harry's. Their pupils were nearly dilated to the same degree, and Harry knew his vision was only a fraction worse than his animal companion's. By now, he was confident of those kinds of things. He knew because he could feel the unfettered strength of his animagus form great and stirring in his chest, just behind his sternum.

After his first transformation into the panther he could tell he was changed. Since that day he always felt there was a powerful reserve dormant in him, lying in wait, waiting to be tapped. Ready to be unleashed at his command. It never left him completely, never slipped from his awareness. It was the new normal for Harry Potter. He had no recourse but to adjust to it.

That adjustment was the best Harry had ever felt in his young life. His animagus form was strong. It was decisive. It was unapologetic. It was freedom in a sense Harry had never known before.

Hermione had realized quickly after that first night, after the first change, that they would have to find a time when no one else would be around to be their animal forms. One couldn't learn how to move in a body they never adopted, after all. So they changed their regular running time from evening to morning before classes. No one was awake at that hour and it was well within school rules. There were curfews dictating how late students could stay up, but not how early they could rise. Switching their runs to early morning meant Harry and Hermione could make their usual circle of the grounds… and that they could slip unnoticed into the Forbidden Forest where they would become the cats.

Hermione a lioness and Harry a black jaguar. Hermione had researched both their forms, naturally, and come to the conclusion that Harry was more jaguar than leopard, since both felines could come in the black variety and looked very similar. She decided he favored the jaguar based upon the underlying spot pattern beneath the black of his coat and the body build of his cat form, stouter and stronger than the leopard's. Harry had looked at the picture in the book Hermione was reading, to know what he looked like from Hermione's perspective, but he was more interested in his capabilities than the National Geographic special on his animagus form's source animal. That was the beauty of their morning runs.

Given what they knew, Harry and Hermione should have been more reticent about traipsing heedlessly into the Forbidden Forest, for both the banned nature as far as Hogwarts's rules were concerned and also for the inherent dangers found therein. However, it turned out Harry and Hermione's cat forms were recklessly unafraid. As lioness and jaguar, they didn't fear the things that would have frightened them as children. Not when they were so fast, so strong, so in touch with the world around them that it seemed they saw, smelled, and heard everything a mile away.

That pure sense of invincibility, of speed and wild alacrity, well made up for the sleep lost when Harry had to rise before the sun.

"_Mrowerrr_."

Harry, already buzzing about the impending change, smiled at the housecat. "I'm nearly ready, Crookshanks."

Crookshanks was sitting across from Harry, inches from Ron's bed with his back to the snoozing redhead. He calmly swished his long-haired tail from one side of his body to the other, managing to look rather expectant. Much like he'd waited on Harry for the past several mornings. It was a new routine that the cat was Harry's first sight when he woke. How Hermione had gotten Crookshanks to be their go-between and shared alarm clock Harry didn't know, but he confessed he never minded the kneazle's pig-nosed face in his first thing in the morning. Strangely enough, Harry found he liked Hermione's familiar even more than he used to. Maybe it was from experiencing the world from a cat's perspective; perhaps it created some sense of kinship or common ground.

Ron grumbled and rolled over, unknowingly throwing one of his arms over the side of the bed. It smacked an unsuspecting Crookshanks right on the top of his head and the cat spun indignantly and hissed. He swiped at Ron's dangling hand with unsheathed claws and Ron woke with a curse. "_Bloody 'ell_!"

"B'quiet! Pity's sake…" one of the other boys slurred. It sounded a bit like Seamus, but at such an ungodly hour it could just as well have been Neville.

Ron sat upright, blinking blearily. He squinted hard at his hand, at Crookshanks looking supremely _not_ sorry, then at Harry standing near his own bed fully dressed for his morning run. Ron was straining to see in the dark, but Harry touched the jaguar, only brushed the slumbering power in him, and for it he saw better in the dark. That ability, when Harry quite accidentally stumbled upon how to use it, had surprised even Hermione. She hadn't known they would be able to do that, utilize their animagus capabilities and gifts without physically becoming their animagus forms. Of course, once she learned what Harry had figured out how to do, she set them both to practicing it. Harry had mastered that feat faster and more effortlessly than Hermione. It took her a good bit of concentration and effort to merely touch the lioness without rushing into her skin, and even when she managed to do it that ability was never as acutely tapped as when Harry did it. It only made Hermione want to practice that aspect of being an animagus all the harder. It was yet another thing they worked on together in the early morning hours.

Ron picked up his pillow and hurled it viciously at Crookshanks when Ron's sleep-addled brain finally put together what had happened. The cat streaked away with a spitting scream and disappeared through the dorm room door.

"Damn cat!" Ron seethed, "why can't Hermione keep her bloody pet under control?" Ron flopped down on his back on the bed, groaning when he noticed the absence of a pillow to lay his head on.

"Sorry about that," Harry said on Crookshanks's behalf, though he really wasn't sorry. Crookshanks wouldn't be, because there was no guilt or shame or embarrassment there. Not as a cat. Harry knew.

Ron grumbled under his breath then flopped over on to his stomach.

"I'll see you at breakfast," Harry said as he stooped, retrieved Ron's pillow turned projectile, and tossed it back to his friend.

Ron grunted when the pillow hit him in the back and he flipped over. "You know, I thought you two were barking for that running business before, but this getting up before dawn! You're both totally mad, you know that."

Harry smirked. "Still don't care to join us?" He could invite Ron all he liked without worry, because Ron would rather take Snape to the Yule Ball than crawl of out bed before sunrise to go running.

Ron snorted, stuffed his pillow back under his head, and promptly rolled over to go back to sleep. Harry suppressed a chuckle and quickly left the boys' dorm.

Hermione was waiting for him in the deserted common room, Crookshanks purring contently in her arms. She was dressed and ready for their run and from the light in her eyes when she caught sight of him, he could tell she was just as eager as he. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail but a section had fallen loose.

"Took you long enough." Hermione set Crookshanks down on the couch and turned to face Harry. She was practically glowing. She'd been alive and vibrant in a way Harry couldn't rightly describe since the transformation. It was like he could look at her and the untamed elation of the lioness was just behind her eyes. But it was more than that. There was the newfound suppleness to her body movements, the keenness in her eyes, even the way she smiled. It was affected, touched, all of it. The grasslands were in her. Like the jungle lay in him.

Harry crossed the room, and without even thinking about it he reached up and tangled his fingers in her bit of wild, unbound hair. The way he'd find himself burying his fingers in her mane when he was boy and she cat. Hermione cocked her head, let her eyes flutter shut, and she rubbed her cheek faintly against the palm of his hand. As though it was completely unsurprising that either should do exactly what they did. She opened her eyes and smiled. "Come on, then, let's go." She moved into him before turning, brushed her shoulder against his, and left for the portrait hole. Harry was quickly on her heels.

The sky was barely painted maroon and violet when they emerged on to the grounds of the school. Only the most ambitious birds were stirring to song and the crickets had called it a night. It was the hour before daylight that Harry and Hermione were growing to know very well. With no one else at Hogwarts awake yet, it was as though the whole of the world, for that time, belonged solely to them.

Harry and Hermione wordlessly started running. They had a pattern by now, a path they followed every day. They each knew it as well as the other, so talk was unnecessary. They headed away from the castle, passed the north shore of the Black Lake, and skirted the boundary between grounds and forest, step for step, strides matched.

When they'd circled the castle, once they'd reached the point where the most of the massive school they could see was the greenhouses, they veered. Hermione went first, dodging into the tree line as though trying to feint out a pursuer. Harry jinked and followed suit. They were both quickly swallowed by the Forbidden Forest.

They ran on, weaving between trees and around shrubs and bushes. Vague, indistinct shadows, struggling to exist given the sparse light of early morning, passed softly over them as they passed beneath branches and vaulted ceilings of leaves. They stayed side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder.

They were running right for a fallen tree, its trunk blocking the path.

Neither Harry nor Hermione moved to go around. Neither of them flinched or balked at the quickly approaching obstruction.

When they reached the log they both jumped. They kicked off and dove forward, arms reaching out in front of them, pulling their bodies horizontal like leaping from a diving board, as though they meant to hit the ground on the other side with a drop shoulder-roll.

Instead they came down on the other side as cats. They landed gracefully on sure paws and with barely a bobble continued their run through the trees.

It was flawless. Had anyone been there to see it they might even call it breathtaking. One might even mistake them for animagi of several years' experience. It seemed they had learned so much in a remarkably short time. Scantly a week possessing the ability to change into animal form, and yet they had excelled in leaps and bounds. They'd mastered transforming with their clothes (to their shared relief), as well as managing to switch from cat to human and back again without losing their balance or tipping drunkenly to one side or the other when their center of gravity sudden shifted. They could smoothly transition from one form to another until it was uncertain which was the more natural state.

At times, Harry wasn't sure of the answer.

Hermione gave a playful flick of her tail and she accelerated ahead of Harry, far faster than she could have run as a girl. With a thrill of adrenaline in his veins, Harry gave a guttural sound of merriment and took off after her.

They charged with abandon through the forest. Trees passed by them as gray blurs to their joy. Potential dangers in the notoriously treacherous woods were mere afterthoughts.

Harry closed on Hermione's gracefully racing form. He saw her left ear tick back toward him to better catch the sound of his approach, and he put on a burst of speed. He passed her. When threading and wending between trees at a dead run, Harry was faster. If they hit a clearing with open space, room to go flat-out, Hermione was the quicker. They were discovering slight differences in their abilities such as that. For now, amid bramble and bush, the advantage went to Harry, and he used it.

The wind sang in his ears and slicked along his sides like cool water.

Freedom. Absolute freedom.

Then he jumped and gave a short yowl when Hermione lightly nipped his haunches. Harry turned a leaping stride into a spin. He whirled to face Hermione, agile and swift, and opened his black arms to snare her. He caught her around the neck with one forearm, claws safely sheathed, as she barreled into him.

They went down together in a tangle of legs and tails. They rolled and tumbled and when finally they came to a stop Harry was on his back and Hermione's head caught between his forelegs. She was half lying on top of him, panting from the exertion of their chase and tussle. Her dark brown eyes were glittering in feral delight as she looked down at him. Harry's tail was twitching madly with glee.

Hermione lowered her head and rubbed her chin against his chest. Then she brought up a paw and gently swatted at his face. Harry made a mewing sound in the back of his throat and twisted beneath her. He righted himself but still Hermione would not get up off him. She lay atop him, pinned him with her upper body, and lightly took the nape of his neck between her teeth.

Harry made a fake sound of complaint and pulled free of her teeth only to reach back and rub his head against her shoulder, whiskers tingling with the dancing sensation of contact with her.

Then the tawny limbs around his shoulders became slender girl's arms. The weight atop Harry lessened and the smell of her changed to an all-together different but just as familiar scent.

Presently, Hermione the witch was draped over Harry the black jaguar, like a girl might wrap around a beloved family dog, and Harry closed his eyes. He didn't change to match her right away. Just as he sometimes enjoyed touching Hermione the lioness with human hands, so did she find enjoyment in being human while in the company of Harry the panther. It was an affinity to which they'd mutually confessed, so it was not unusual for one to stay human while the other became the large cat. It permitted the curiosity inborn to each form, human and cat, to interact with the other as a species different from its own.

Hermione rested her head against the point of his shoulders. "If I'd known being an animagus would be like this…" she said dreamily.

Harry turned on to his back again, rolled under her arms, and soon he was looking up at Hermione from his back. Hermione smiled down at him, her hair even less contained by the ponytail band than it had been to start. She looked the wilder for it, and in this wild hour it was only fitting. The tip of Harry's tail was in a constant state of motion and he hooked her around the arm gently with one massive, curled paw.

Hermione chuckled and smoothed her hand over his muzzle. "Come on, Harry, I want to talk to you."

Harry changed back just like that, as easy as he might have removed his glasses. Hermione ended up with her upper body lying across his chest, the both of them spread out on the forest floor like beach-going vacationers. As though neither was even aware of the dreary, ominous Forbidden Forest thick all around them.

Neither of them made a move to get up.

"Okay, so talk," Harry said with a playful smile.

Hermione folded her arms atop his chest and dropped her chin to rest on top of her hands. She gazed down thoughtfully at Harry, his face only inches from hers. He watched her back, waiting patiently. She still had the kiss of the wind pink in her cheeks. Once again, Harry did not fight the compulsion to reach up and tangle his fingers in her thick hair.

"Harry…" Hermione said as he played idly with her hair, "now, don't go playing the modest card when I say this… but you know how you're a remarkably powerful wizard?"

Harry made a face.

"Don't even try and deny it, Harry Potter. You are."

Harry dropped his hand from her hair only to place both behind his head and interlace his fingers into an improvised pillow. He could tell Hermione was on about something, and it usually didn't do any good to try and stand against her. "Okay, let's say for now that I am, what about it?"

Hermione shifted one hand free from supporting her head to pick off an errant bit of leaf that had fallen on Harry's neck. "Well, I was wondering if maybe you might actually be able to perform magic in your animagus form."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "As the cat? Is that even possible?"

"I don't know. There's not a lot of literature on the specific abilities of animagi, truth be told, maybe because it's so individualistic concerning the witch or wizard in question. We didn't even know it would be possible to tap into things like heightened hearing and sight while still holding human shape until you managed it. But I got to wondering about the possibility of you doing magic in animagus form because magic like that would clearly have to be wandless, and you can do a fair bit of wandless magic when you want to."

"You mean when I'm in a right temper. I don't think that really counts. It's not wandless, it's uncontrolled."

"It's both. Maybe you could hone it. You know, learn to control it."

"Hmmm," Harry shifted to get up and Hermione sat up and away from him. Harry rolled up to his feet and looked around the forest thoughtfully. "I don't know that I can do wandless magic the way you're talking about. Like Dumbledore does."

Hermione stood and faced him. "I bet you could if you worked at it. I don't think any of us really know how powerful you can be, Harry. Not even you." Harry turned his eyes down to her and the doubt was in his gaze and stance. Hermione had so much faith in him, but he _knew_ he wasn't as strong or powerful as she believed him to be. Hermione was not one easily deterred, however. "We tackled the challenge of becoming animagi because we thought it might help you against Voldemort, right? Well, mastering wandless magic would, too. Even if you couldn't do it as the cat, being able to do it as a wizard would really be a benefit to you. I'm confident of that."

He was dubious. Wandless magic was a very difficult to perform magical talent, with only the likes of Dumbledore truly mastering it. Harry couldn't honestly hope to rank with Dumbledore for magical ability. But still, Harry had to admit that Hermione's animagus idea had come through brilliantly, and he'd been uncertain of that, too, at the onset. Perhaps here as well he should follow Hermione on blind faith. "Well, if we _did_ decide to try our hand at wandless magic, is that something you can teach us to do from a book as well?"

Hermione's eyes widened at his words. "Oh, I only meant you, Harry. _I_ couldn't do it."

He canted his head and regarded her querulously. "Why not you, too?"

She glanced away from him. He could read the answer in the frown that creased her brow. She was thinking that she wasn't magically gifted enough to do it. He'd heard it before, in a similar form, when it came time for her to try the change the first time. She was book smart, and it wouldn't avail her in matters of pure magical talent. She was a decent enough witch for the great majority of spells, but nowhere near to Harry's caliber when it came to raw, innate ability. In that, she would insist, she was all too average. It was rubbish, of course, because Harry had threaded his fingers through her mane and he'd raced the wind with her.

"I don't think you can learn it from a book," Hermione said at long delay, completely ignoring Harry's second question. For now, he let her. "Technically, we didn't _really_ learn the key to becoming animagi from a book, either. We might not have ever figured it out without Kimmy."

"You would have," Harry said with total confidence.

Hermione blushed momentarily. "I thought you might best ask Dumbledore… see if he'll teach you, since he is the only one we know who knows how to do it." She looked up at him and suddenly stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest to emphasize her words. "Really, Harry, I think it would behoove you to at least try to learn how to do wandless magic. You've done it before, albeit inadvertently, it suggests you're _capable_, just unskilled in how to focus it."

Harry absently covered her hand with his, tucked a strand of her loose hair behind her ear, and said, "I'll ask him. On one condition."

Hermione's face crinkled shrewdly but she waited hesitantly for his terms.

"You come and ask to learn it with me."

"Harry…" Hermione pulled her hand free and stepped back a pace.

"I don't accept that you won't even consider the chance you could be able to do it, too. You had doubts about your being able to become an animagus, and look at you now," Harry pointed out.

"That's different." Hermione turned her back to him and looked out at the forest. Harry took a step closer to her until he stood just behind her right shoulder. It was close enough to feel her body heat in the chilly morning and catch the barest hints of her scent on the breeze. Hermione glanced back at him and sighed. "There were a lot of variables in becoming an animagus that I didn't fully understand. They _might_ have been beyond my power. I didn't know enough to confidently say that they _wouldn't_ prevent me from succeeding.

"But I know exactly what it takes to do wandless magic, Harry," she turned to face him again, head titled back just enough to look up at his insanely close face as he stood scant inches from her. Her expression was dogged. "It requires a degree of magical power that you have to be born with. You can't learn it in a book, no amount of study or practice will give it to you. And I know I don't have it. You do."

"I don't think I'm as special as you think I am, Hermione. Truthfully, I don't think I'll ever be able to do wandless magic. At least not when it's outside of me blowing a gasket because I'm mad."

"And what do you think the source of that 'gasket blowing' is? It's the same place inside you that would allow for wandless magic."

They were arguing themselves in circles. "All right, then here's what I propose. I ask Dumbledore if he'll teach _us_ wandless magic. I don't think I can do it, you don't think you can. Try despite your doubts and I'll try despite mine."

Hermione studied him closely a moment, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, then she gave a nod. "All right." She turned her eyes toward the sky, peered past the leaves to note the hue of the painted clouds, and said, "I think we still have some time to work on the sensing."

It didn't surprise him in the least that she would shift her focus so easily to that particularly vexing task for her. It was part of Hermione's unending charm. So of course he relented to her.

They sat down on the forest floor, facing one another, and Hermione's gaze toward him turned attentive and studious. She was waiting on him. His guidance.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes, put aside whatever conflicted feelings or confusion that might have arisen from his previous discussion with Hermione, and he reached inward for the panther. He imagined it like a representation of the animal that hibernated in his chest, but not so much the full-fledged shape of the cat. Rather he envisioned the blackness of its fur, the hint of those powerful claws, the ice blue eyes against ebony, the sense of lean muscles capable of incredible prowess, far-sensing sight and hearing at the cat's disposal. It was an amalgamation of the aspects of his animagus form that defined it in Harry's mind. He harbored it in his body. At will, he reached down for that brush of black coat. He just touched its sleeping power and the panther stirred. It didn't burst forth and claim his body, it didn't change him. He only nudged it, awoke its abilities and borrowed them while the cat itself was held at bay.

The Forbidden Forest erupted around Harry. Sounds went from muffled and faint to crisp and clear. The air hit his nose sharply and headily, particularly Hermione's smell as she sat so close. He listened to the tapestry of noises until he found one sound to pick among the many.

He opened his eyes and looked at Hermione. "There's a squirrel cracking a nut or acorn or something. My guess is it's two or three trees from where we are. Try to hear it."

Hermione nodded quickly, sat up straight, and closed her eyes. She was determined to master this ability, but so far it had proved difficult for her. Harry had a hard time trying to explain how he did it when she asked for further advice. It seemed to just happen when he wanted it to. He'd had a few unintended changes at first, but since then he hadn't really changed into the panther when he only meant to touch and tap the panther's abilities unless he chose and willed himself to be the cat. To him, being an animagus was a far more fluid experience, human and panther lying on opposite ends of a continuum with varying degrees of intermediary phases in between. For Hermione it seemed a much more demarcated event. She was either human or feline, witch or cat, and for the most part it seemed that never the twain shall meet. She had to struggle to borrow from her animagus form in the same way he was able to borrow hearing or sight from his panther form. And to be honest about it, she never really managed, not nearly as Harry did. The times that they did credit her with approaching the feat was in all truthfulness more an instance of her being on the cusp of the change and holding it off a few seconds, lingering in a limbo that she could not hold.

The trouble she had doing it did not sway her from attempting to master its use, however. Harry sat quietly and watched her.

At first her expression was calm and placid. Then a crinkle appeared on her brow. Then her lips tightened into a determined line. Her brows drew together. A frustrated flush touched her cheeks. Then she sucked in a breath, leaned forward, placed one hand on the ground, and changed into the lioness.

Hermione snarled in frustration, canines bared and claws digging into the dirt.

"Hey, hey," Harry reached forward and took her head in his hands. Hermione looked at him, an angry rumble still rising from her chest. Harry smiled gently and said, "It's all right. We'll work on it some more later. It'll take some practice, that's all. I know you can do it."

Hermione stared sharply at him as though she felt she was being patronized, but the rumble in her throat died and she huffed out a breath.

Harry dropped his hands from her head, twisted at the waist, and placed his hands on the ground, as though he meant to spin around on his bum. Instead he rose to all fours and completed the turn to face Hermione once more as the jaguar. Hermione was still standing with legs braced, claws embedded in the ground, still in a sour mood for her failure.

Harry went over to her, bumped her in the shoulder with his own, and rubbed along her body to try and break her out of her disposition. Hermione leaned into him in reciprocation after a couple of seconds standing stubbornly still.

Together they walked back in the direction they'd come, easily and unrushed, side by side as ever.

When they could see the break in the tree line ahead that would deposit them back on to Hogwarts school grounds they both rose to their back legs, but did so for only a split second before they were straightening from a stoop and standing upright in full human form once more.

They left the Forbidden Forest and cut across the grounds toward the castle, moving casually like nothing more exciting than your average exercise run had happened.

"Harry?"

Harry glanced at Hermione by his side. She was deep in thought, which was hardly a surprise, but whatever was on her mind seemed to be bothering her. She turned her eyes to him. "About asking Dumbledore to teach us wandless magic…"

"Yeah?"

"I think you should ask him to teach Ron, too."

Harry paused. "Ron? You don't think he'll be able to do it."

"No, I don't."

"Then why—"

"Because…" she stopped, as though unsure how to articulate her thoughts, "because it's been you and me a lot this term. At first it was just that we'd gotten used to it being just the two of us after last summer, and then when neither of us were really talking to Ron it was just you and me… but now that things are a bit more back to normal… he'd notice if we excluded him, Harry. I don't want to alienate him when we've only now patched things up with the three of us. No, I don't think he'll be able to do it, but then I don't think I'll be able to, either." She graced Harry with a smile. "So it's no harm to have him join us, but it could end badly if we didn't invite him."

Harry, as usual, could not fault her logic. "Yeah, I suppose. I'll ask him then."

Hermione gave him a grateful, approving smile and sidled closer to him. Her shoulder brushed his and her hand closed lightly around his forearm. She maintained that gentle hold all the way back to the castle.


	32. Chapter 32

"Unbelievable," Ron muttered unhappily as he dropped to the floor next to Harry after they had both descended the ladder from Trelawney's classroom. Fellow Gryffindors were shuffling by with similarly displeased scowls on their faces.

On Fridays Harry and Ron had Divination first period while Hermione was off taking Arithmancy with Professor Vector. Harry tended to side with Ron in thinking Arithmancy was some vile manner of self-imposed torture, but on certain days Trelawney's rambling made him wonder if maybe Hermione wasn't the smarter of the three of them for dropping the course.

Harry smiled to himself when his own thoughts caught up to him. If it was a question of smarts, then Hermione was definitely running circles around the boys. Some things never changed.

Ron yawned crookedly and saw Harry's smile from his one opened eye. He snapped his jaw shut to frown at his friend. "Why the hell are you smiling?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead hiked the shoulder strap of his bag higher toward his neck and huffed, "Though we shouldn't be surprised in the least that daft old woman would pull something like this, you know?" The two of them side-stepped some bustling Ravenclaws as Harry subtly led Ron off to one side. Ron, meanwhile, continued to rant. "I mean, we're all nervous enough about Hogsmeade tomorrow as it is, what with You Know Who on the loose and all, but for her to spend the entire hour predicting our gruesome deaths at the hands of Death Eaters then to fall apart and cry like that!"

Harry gave a one-shouldered shrug, "That's pretty much every Divination class for me."

Ron snorted. "_She's_ the bat in the belfry, that one. How she ever became a teacher being a complete nut job I'll never get. Did you see Parvati's face when that hag started sobbing like a baby? I thought she was going to start crying, too! I'm telling you, mate, if this class turns into a reason for girls to cry and simper I'm dropping it next term. I'll take my chances in Arithmancy or _Merlin forbid_, Ancient Runes. Hey, Harry, where are we going? This isn't the way to History of Magic. Though if you're thinking of skiving, I'm all for it. Binns just might be enough to put the lot of us over the edge and _hope_ Trelawney's right about us all kicking it tomorrow."

"Ron," Harry turned to his trailing comrade and the redhead stuttered to a stop in front of Harry. "Be quiet for a minute, I need to talk to you about something." He'd maneuvered them over against the wall, out of the way of most of the foot traffic.

Ron yawned again and scratched at the nape of his neck with a bandaged hand. He'd not opted to get up even a second earlier than necessary to go to the hospital wing to have the cat scratches tended. "A'right, what's up?"

Harry glanced around once to scan for any obvious eavesdroppers then said in a low voice, "Hermione and I were talking this morning, and we're thinking we'd all three of us go to Dumbledore and see if he'd see his way clear to teaching us how to do wandless magic."

Ron's eyes widened and his mouth popped open. "Wandless magic? Are you serious?"

Harry nodded. "Hermione figures it might prove useful if it ever comes down to another confrontation with Voldemort." Ron made a strangled sound which Harry ignored. Honestly, it was a stupid name. "And since Dumbledore's the only person we know who really has a handle on the whole wandless magic thing, it made sense to ask him if he'd be willing to teach us. You want to try learning it?"

"Are you kidding? Wandless magic? That's got to be just about the coolest use of magic there is. You're bloody right I'd want to learn it. Not even Charlie or Bill can do wandless magic, and they're seen as the better wizards of the Weasley clan." Ron glowered a moment as though he'd bitten into a foul lemon.

"Great, then. I'd planned on going to Dumbledore's office during lunch to ask him about it. You can come along if you like."

Ron nodded in agreement then lingered on the idea. "Wow, can you imagine—" Ron paused fractionally and his gaze shifted from Harry's eyes to a point an inch to Harry's right. Harry shifted his hearing and caught the sound of footfalls approaching from behind him. He half-turned his head to bring the approaching person into his field of vision from the corner of his eye, and just that was enough for him to recognize Hermione.

"Hi, guys," she said to them both as she came upon Harry. Harry turned, drew back his shoulder and opened his stance to her, and Hermione slid in and brushed her shoulder against him. Harry ducked his head for just a second to focus on her, to just barely catch the scent of her hair as it passed before his face, then he turned back to Ron to hear the rest of his sentence. Hermione came to a stop tucked back against Harry's side, her arms closed around a book, as she lifted her eyebrows in a 'what are we talking about' look.

Ron was looking between Harry and Hermione a bit stupidly. He pursed his lips and then slanted his mouth to one side in a queer expression. "You know," he said with a faint note of offense, "for people who aren't dating, you two have gotten _really_ touchy lately."

Harry hadn't thought about it. Had they? He glanced down at Hermione and she looked just as taken aback by the remark. She blinked. Then she waved it off and rolled her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with a little casual physical contact between friends, Ron."

Ron's eyebrows jumped toward his hairline. "I think I have a different definition for 'casual' than you two must."

Harry opened his mouth to put Ron in his place because he should bloody well back off and leave them be, but Hermione beat him to it. She narrowed her eyes at Ron and lifted her chin challengingly. "Are we going to bicker about this?"

Ron blinked, looked a bit stunned by her curt manner, then he shook his head. "No, no, I just… Harry was just telling me about the wandless magic."

Hermione, mood at once changed, looked over her shoulder and up at Harry. "And?"

Harry nodded and for a fraction of a second let his gaze flitter from her eyes to her mouth and back again. "Ron's in."

Hermione quirked a fleeting, private and knowing smile at him, then she turned her attention back to Ron. "Brilliant, then. I really think it'll do us a world of benefit if even one of us can manage it." She looked down at her watch and stepped back a pace from Harry, turned toward him to similarly open her stance to him as he had to her before, and she grabbed his arm. "Look at the time! We better hurry on or we'll be late for History of Magic." She gave Harry's arm a tug, Harry gave a 'better com along' look, and the three of them started down the hall together.

* * *

Walking into Dumbledore's office in the middle of the day reminded Harry of Santa's workshop. Since his first visit to the headmaster's keep he'd thought so, if only in the back of his head. It was not so prominent an association that it would come up in conversation, maybe because Harry had only that snippet of memory from which to draw. It was perhaps his only pleasant Christmas memory with the Dursleys, and even that one he'd snatched without permission. One Christmas, when he was seven, he'd snuck out of the kitchen when he was meant to be cooking the supper feast and peeked in on Dudley watching a Christmas movie in the living room. He only watched a few seconds before he was caught by Aunt Petunia and herded back to the stove (where he suffered a sound whack on the head with a wooden spoon), but those handful of seconds were enough for him to see what was on the telly. There had been elves, workbenches, toys, and everywhere smiles and tinkling objects and glittering gold, red, and green. During the day, Harry thought that Dumbledore's office was a lot like that. The portraits on the walls of animated past headmasters of Hogwarts were the Christmas elves filling the place with talk and movement and life, and everywhere Dumbledore kept various magical objects, some Harry could not begin to name, many that moved with indefatigable energy of their own, that tinkled and glittered and sparkled near as gaily as the workshop.

There was even a white-bearded old man to oversee it all.

When they'd pushed open the door, Dumbledore was standing in the middle of the room, making coiling motions in the air with his wand. As he did so, his beard spiraled upward in the air like a sculpted shrub, obscuring most of his face in the process. He stopped when he saw the three of them enter his office (he had to peer around his erect curly-q beard to properly look at them).

"Harry, Miss Granger, Mister Weasley. What an unexpected visit. Do come in," as the three students filed into his office Dumbledore gave a last flick of his wand and his beard uncoiled in a flash and seemed to tug itself in all directions, as though attempting to free itself from his face, before lying naturally against his chest. "Caught me in a bit of beard twirling."

Harry had no idea what purpose that might serve, but then it seemed he was still learning the world of magic one baffling step at a time. It wasn't entirely surprising it would be a mystery to him.

"Beard twirling?" Ron queried. Harry was piqued to wonder a bit more about Dumbledore's recent activity. Must be something truly peculiar if Ron, from a wizard family, hadn't heard of it.

"Yes, I find it keeps my beard looking plucky. Now… what brings you three to my office when there is such a titillating aroma coming from the Great Hall? You haven't been sent here for some misbehavior, have you?"

Harry, standing in the middle between Ron and Hermione, was in a fit position to see Hermione straightened with purposeful intent and hear Ron make a faint, piteous noise at the mention of their missed meal. Harry turned his head fractionally toward Hermione to confer with her one last time. She never took her eyes from Dumbledore, but with a faint nod she urged him forward to broach their reason for coming.

Harry looked back at the headmaster. "Sir… we have something to ask of you."

"Do you now? Hmm… interesting." Dumbledore walked around to stand behind his desk and looked at each of them in turn before taking a seat in his large, comfortable chair. "Well, then, what is this thing you wish to ask of me?"

"We hoped you might consent to teaching us wandless magic," Harry said.

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose as he looked intently at Harry. "I see." His eyes cut over to Hermione on Harry's left. And they stayed there. Harry shouldn't have expected less. Of course Dumbledore would know in a second who thought up the idea.

Hermione took up the silent challenge without hesitation. "Headmaster… I feel the possibility of being able to perform wandless magic could be invaluable to Harry. And Ron and I, too, as we fully intend to stand with Harry should the worst happen."

Harry could hear Ron to his right hold his breath, but he didn't object or contradict Hermione.

Dumbledore nodded gravely.

"You're the only wizard we know who has really mastered wandless magic," Hermione pressed. "Who better than you to teach us?"

"Who indeed," Dumbledore mused aloud, then leaned slightly forward to study Harry with a sharp eye. Harry stood straighter without really knowing why.

Dumbledore finally spoke. "I can't fault your reasoning on this matter, Miss Granger. Seems I rarely can, come to think on it. I can attest only too well how handy it is to be able to perform magic without the use of a wand, and I don't just mean to summon a towel whilst in the shower." The headmaster directed his next comment at Harry. "And it is well that you should understand that the threat of Voldemort is all too real, even here at the school. The staff here at Hogwarts is doing all in our power to protect the students, but with a dark wizard like Voldemort there can be no certainty that danger will not find its way into our dearest retreats."

Harry gave a ghost of a nod. He had no misconceptions about that.

Dumbledore gave a faint nod back, so slight Harry wondered if perhaps he'd imagined it, then he said, "But to do wandless magic is a demanding challenge, and not one that is ever guaranteed regardless of conviction. I trust you are well aware of that, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, and I told Harry and Ron it might not work no matter how hard we practice. But still, we'd like to try."

"And try you shall." Dumbledore stood and rounded the desk to stand directly before his students. He leveled his gaze on Harry. "I'll teach you what I can about wandless magic." He glanced to either side of Harry to take in Ron and Hermione. "Only do not be disappointed if your efforts never bear fruit. Wandless magic is a finicky talent, terribly hard to manage, and some very powerful witches and wizards are vexed by that ability alone."

"We won't be discouraged," Harry promised.

"Very well, then. In that case, let us begin out lessons Sunday afternoon, after the Hogsmeade outing tomorrow."

It would serve in Harry's opinion, but he was stilled in his own thinking when he caught Hermione pause in the corner of his eye. She chewed on her bottom lip in thought then ventured, "Headmaster? Considering how important this could be, wouldn't it make more sense to skip Hogsmeade in order to start lessons right away?"

Ron made a croaking noise in the back of his throat at Hermione forfeiting all their Hogsmeade trips without asking, but wisely he did not openly protest or argue against her. Harry had been looking forward to Hogsmeade just like Ron, but in the grander scheme Hermione's proposal made far more sense. Which did not surprise him in the least. If he had to give up a day trip to Hogsmeade to potentially learn a new way to fight against Voldemort, and possibly aid his survival… Honeydukes could most certainly wait.

Harry blinked in surprise when Dumbledore actually looked… caught out. The elder wizard perched on the edge of his desk and looked long and hard at Harry. Then he sighed. "Harry… I have something to confess to you. No doubt you will be angry, but I would hope you can understand why I did it and refrain from getting too upset. Even more, I hope you can forgive me."

Harry tensed. This did not sound good at all. Hermione shifted a bare inch to stand nearer to him. "What do you mean, sir?" he asked warily.

The Headmaster looked genuinely aggrieved to say what he was about to, but it did not stop him. "Our combined efforts with the Ministry of Magic to locate the whereabouts of Voldemort have so far been without results. We are utilizing all the resources we can imagine, some even the ministry doesn't know about, but as yet they have all been to no avail. We simply cannot find him.

"Did you ask yourself, Harry, why I would permit an excursion to Hogsmeade when the current times are so dangerous?"

Harry felt his gut being clenched in a cold fist. "Hermione asked it."

Dumbledore glanced once at Hermione and gave her an acknowledging nod. "I never expected an incongruence such as that to pass by Miss Granger unnoticed."

"Why did you?" Hermione asked in a low voice. Her tone told Harry she'd already sussed out Dumbledore's reasons. And she was none too happy about them, either. Harry suspected he knew full well, too, but he wanted Dumbledore to tell him. He'd have it from the source. He almost _had_ to hear it from Dumbledore to truly believe it of him.

The headmaster looked glum. "We know that Voldmort still has designs on Harry. For whatever his own cruel purposes, he wants to get his hands on Harry.

"We had hoped that Harry leaving the safety of the school grounds might tempt Voldemort to make a move where we are in a position to strike him."

Harry stared, unflinchingly, at Dumbledore.

Hermione next to him was not so stoic. She growled, "You're using him as _bait_!" The disgust and revulsion was thick in her voice.

"Yes, I am afraid so."

Harry could sense Hermione fuming. He could imagine how her body tensed at the same time he listened to her breathing change and felt her presence harden. He stole a half-glance at Ron and his companion was pale. It made his red hair stand out starkly. Harry turned his eyes to the headmaster and found Dumbledore watching him with singular intensity.

Harry scowled faintly. "If you didn't tell me before, you obviously knew I wouldn't like this one bit."

"I didn't pretend to think you'd be okay with this plan. Nor would you be alone. Professor McGonagall was actually quite staunchly opposed to this whole idea, if it makes it any easier to accept. It was far from a unanimous decision even among Hogwarts's teachers. We are all trying to look out for you, Harry."

Harry had a fleeting thought of Snape. "Right."

Hermione asked sharply, "How is dangling Harry in front of You Know Who's nose looking out for him? Isn't that precisely how Harry ended up in the graveyard last year?"

"_Hermione_," Ron gave a shocked whisper that she would speak to the headmaster of Hogwarts in such a way, even if the situation pretty well warranted it. Buggered or not, there were still some things a proper student didn't do, and Hermione was the quintessential proper student.

Hermione didn't apologize. Harry was glad she didn't. He'd like an answer to that question. He watched Dumbledore steadily to take in every nuance that surrounded his reaction.

Ultimately, Dumbledore was not an easy read.

"The longer Voldemort is on the loose, the more time he has to bring together his old followers.

"When we were unable to apprehend him over the summer we began to fear our chances would dwindle with each day that he was free. At the beginning we could hope some of the old Death Eaters who'd gone to ground after Voldemort's fall fourteen years ago would believe his return a rumor and stay put to save their own skins. But now there has been time for rumors to become facts, and old allies and enemies to find their way back to old allegiances.

"If Voldemort has time to reassemble even half of his old band of Death Eaters then our world, and possibly the world of muggles, will be gripped once more in a war the likes of which many had ardently hoped to never see again." Dumbledore stepped closer to Harry. "This is a bold move on our part."

"Bold or desperate?" Harry asked bluntly.

Dumbledore placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. He did not reprimand Harry for his insolent tone. "Sadly, the two are often hard to tell apart. Know that I consented to this with a heavy heart and every belief that it can only serve to help protect you.

"Nearly half of the teachers in Hogwarts will be going to Hogsmeade tomorrow with the students. They'll be near at hand wherever you go, provided you stay within the village proper." Dumbledore looked squarely at Harry on the last, indicating it was also a command.

Harry bristled. "I'll not have an _escort_."

For a moment, Dumbledore's eyes flickered. As though Harry had finally managed to catch him off guard with his reaction. Then the headmaster's expression hardened. "Harry… this is for your safety."

"Forgive me if I don't fancy being your staked goat." He'd had his share of being bound and bled like a sacrificial lamb at the end of last term.

Dumbledore blinked at Harry. He glanced once at Hermione and was clearly met with matching rancor. When he turned his attention back to Harry he was no longer the sweet, grandfatherly figure they knew well. The one who always had a smile in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. He was the immensely powerful headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who was not one to suffer petulant children. "I know you're upset, and you have right to be, but the strong faculty presence at Hogsmeade tomorrow is not optional. You are not the only student we must keep safe, Mister Potter."

At that, Harry's ire fizzled a bit. Of course. This wasn't a one-man war. It was easy for Harry to get wrapped up in his own conflicts with the dark wizard to such an extent that it began to seem like it was a battle between the two of them, him and the dark wizard. Voldemort wasn't interested in Harry and Harry alone. Harry was far from the only student to have lost loved ones to Voldemort's last reign of terror. A lot of people stood to die if things went badly for them now.

Harry dropped his eyes to the floor. Hermione shifted ever-so-faintly closer to him. He could feel her body heat like a soft blanket along his arm. She'd accepted the same truth as he, Harry knew. He knew Hermione well enough to be sure of that.

Dumbledore gave Harry's shoulder a squeeze and a touch of the gentleness was back in his voice. "Go to Hogsmeade tomorrow with your friends, do your best to have a good time, but stay in the village where the other professors can keep an eye on you. Remember why we're doing this, Harry. When you get back, we'll start you on learning wandless magic, though let us hope by then it will be for purely academic pursuits."

Harry nodded.

"Now, I should think the three of you could do with a bit of feeding. Off to lunch with you. I believe we're done here." It wasn't an invitation to address further questions.

The three students dutifully turned. Hermione immediately sidled up tight against Harry's side and slipped her hand in his. Her fingers squeezed tightly, communicating her shared indignation and anger at Dumbledore's revelation.

"_Blimey_, Harry!" Ron said in a strained voice as they traversed the empty corridors.

"What?" Harry asked in a peevish, irritated voice. Hermione tugged at his fingers with her hand, still clasped in his. Only then did Harry realize he'd come off a bit brusque with Ron when he'd done nothing.

For his part, Ron seemed to not have noticed the subtle tone in Harry's voice. "I can't believe you mouthed off to Dumbledore like that!" Ron squawked.

Harry huffed and scowled at the fresh memory.

"It was wrong of Dumbledore to do it, Ron… to _use_ Harry like that," Hermione said emphatically. Harry was too hung up on Dumbledore's confession to appreciate Hermione's passionate displeasure on his behalf.

"Well, I know, but _still_…"

"And it's not even that I wouldn't have gone along with it, had he just told me before now," Harry tossed in acidly.

Ron gulped. Hermione was almost cutting off the circulation in his fingers.

"Completely mental," Ron muttered under his breath, complexion ashen and his expression drawn, but he fell silent. Harry wasn't sure who exactly was the one dubbed 'completely mental', but truth be told he didn't particularly care.

Hermione slipped her other hand around his elbow and tucked in closer to his side, to such an extent that they had to match strides or the uneven steps would have been jarring. Harry gave her hand a squeeze to let her know he realized she was there and trying to support him.

He then glanced over at Ron.

It was a fair bet to say Ron no longer laid blame on Trelawney for shooting their Hogsmeade weekend full of holes.


	33. Chapter 33

"Can I get you anything, dears?"

Hermione was sitting closest to the barmaid, so she spoke for them with a wooden smile plastered on her face. "No thank you, we're fine."

Madam Rosmerta gave Hermione a nod and did a poor job of concealing her glance toward Hermione's dark-haired friend. "Well, you just let me know if you do." The owner of the Three Broomsticks, bar and eatery in Hogsmeade, left their booth to tend to other patrons.

After fielding the unwanted intrusion, Hermione turned her attention back to her weekend companions. She, Harry, and Ron were sharing a table together at the popular student hang-out spot. Harry and Ron each had a half-drained tankard of butterbeer in front of them, but for once it didn't seem to be appreciably improving their moods. Harry was sharing a bench with Hermione, Ron sitting opposite them. The redhead looked particularly choked with resentment that the weekend was crashing and burning so gloriously. It made him look a bit constipated.

Harry was not much better. He'd been sullen since leaving the castle with the packed group of Hogwarts students. They hit the main street of Hogsmeade and students tentatively broke off and fanned out, the teachers took up positions without making it painfully obvious that was their aim, and the three friends had wandered off in a collective funk.

But it wasn't so contained to the three of them, Hermione had noticed. Everywhere she looked her fellow classmates were jumpy. There weren't enough smiles, or at least not any sincere ones. They were laughing, but for the most part it was poorly faked. And their eyes told the truth of it. They were nervous. They were watching their backs and glancing over their shoulders, fretful and fearful of hidden dangers.

Almost better there'd not been a Hogsmeade weekend than this sham of an outing. Though she imagined every jittery student to a person would insist that everything was dandy and they were having a good time. Denial was strange and prickly that way.

It wasn't so for her, Harry, and Ron, though.

Hermione looked toward Harry. It made her frown and her heart ache. He was slouched on the bench, the nail of one finger idly picking at the dinged and scratched butterbeer mug. His expression was stony and unhappy.

Hermione pressed her lips tightly together. She hated this farce, but what could they do? Dumbledore had his reasons, and she knew they were good ones, even if he had gone about it all wrong where it came to Harry's involvement. She'd just have to level her blame against Voldemort. That was a safe and good place to hate to her heart's bitter content.

She decided she was thirsty. When they'd first come in she'd not liked the idea of the taste of butterbeer (it was a cheerful drink, and she was far from being in a cheerful mood), but as they'd sat sulking in their booth for nearly an hour she was becoming all too aware of the long walk to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts.

Hermione moved to leave the booth and Harry spoke for the first time in several minutes. "Where you going?"

"To get a drink; I'm thirsty."

Harry slid his half-full glass over toward her in offering.

Hermione paused, glanced at him, then settled back beside him and took his mug. She sipped the sweet beverage and lingered on the observation that Harry's taste seemed to have been added to the butterbeer. Not unpleasant at all.

Harry, deprived of his glass to occupy his hands, stretched his arms out along the back of the bench. Hermione couldn't resist the opening and slid over closer, nestling under his arm and against his side. She took another sip of butterbeer, for a moment feeling as snug as she might have curled up in front of the hearth in the common room with a cup of hot cider to coax her to sleep.

Ron glanced up at them, looked just slightly sick, and took a big gulp of his own butterbeer as though taking out a personal vendetta against the world. "This _stinks_," he said when he'd placed his mug back on the table.

"Well and wholly," Harry returned and glanced around the Three Broomsticks at other Hogwarts students. Hermione's face was starting to ache from all the frowning she'd been doing. It was just so buggered up. This was supposed to a fun get-away from the homework and tests and lessons. She'd trade about anything to just see Harry crack a smile.

"Maybe we should get out of here," Ron suggested.

"Where did you want to go?" Harry inquired and with an open hand asked Hermione for the butterbeer. She handed it over and he took a drink.

"Anywhere… what about Zonko's? Could do with a good laugh."

Hermione felt a strange smile jerk at her mouth. How very typical that Ron would think a joke shop could fix something this heinously broken. But it was part of Ron's simple appeal. He could believe in things as easy as that. She wished she could at times.

Harry passed Hermione back the butterbeer stein. "Might as well.

"Hermione wanted to go to the bookstore while we were here. Care to just meet us at Zonko's when she's finished?"

Ron nodded. He wasn't about to say a word to that, lest he somehow snare himself into going along to the bookstore.

"Let's go, Hermione," Harry gave a gentle nudge at her side and she unfolded her legs and shuffled out of the booth. Harry followed. She took one last swallow of butterbeer, gave the mug to Harry so he could do the same, and with that he placed the cup on the table and trailed after her as she left the bar/restaurant.

The streets were alive with students putting on the act. Hermione almost preferred the gloom of their booth in the Three Broomsticks. At least there were no falsehoods to bear.

A few students caught sight of Harry, glanced at him… and hurriedly looked away, expressions instantaneously dour. They all but scurried from him. Hermione fumed to herself, toward them. As if Harry was the problem.

"Mione?" Harry said softly close to her ear.

Hermione turned from her flaring disgust at her classmates to look over her shoulder at Harry. "Yes?"

He met her eyes and she was suddenly alert. He had a light in his eyes, flickering behind the blue, that she'd come to know well. She could read what could almost be defined as mischief and _liveliness_ in his gaze. "I have an idea…"

"Lead on, then," she whispered, already intrigued. "The bookstore will keep."

Harry nodded, for a split second she thought he might smile, then he took her hand and led her down the main road… in the opposite direction of the bookstore. Hermione hurried after him.

They wove and threaded between groups, pairs, and solo students in the street. It was made easier as a good deal of them tended to clear a path when they saw Harry coming. Harry didn't seem to care or pay them any heed. Hermione was glad for that much.

Periodically, Hermione caught sight of a teacher standing guard. Watching. It made her angry every time, and it was better if she just concentrated on Harry. He had something in mind, that was very clear. She couldn't imagine what, but the mystery of it was enough to displace some of her disquiet surrounding the entire Hogsmeade weekend just speculating where they might be going.

Hermione was still pondering their destination when, unexpectedly, Harry pulled her aside and they ducked into a narrow alley between two buildings. The distance between the two buildings was so sparse that there was barely room for them to squeeze in together. Harry put his back to one wall and drew Hermione in to stand opposite him, her back to the other building. They were only inches apart. Hermione's heart beat a little faster and it was warmer for their close proximity. She looked up into Harry's near face and a knot formed in her stomach. He was _up to something_, it was glittering bright in his eyes.

"Harry," she breathed in a whisper, "what—"

"Shh…" Harry turned his head to the side to listen. One of his hands came to rest on her waist and Hermione's whole body shivered.

Harry's perception shifted, his intensity of focus went beyond human. Hermione knew he was tapping into the jaguar. How she envied him that incredible gift. She tried so hard, but she was beginning to believe it was a talent inherent to Harry alone. But even in the face of jealousy, she could acknowledge how incredible it was just to watch Harry do it.

Harry cocked his head in a slightly different direction, his eyes were unfocused as he attended primarily to sound, and Hermione indulged in watching. When Harry 'touched the jaguar' as he called it, his presence changed. He might not shift from man to beast, but something in the sense of him did. He was suddenly just _raw_. It was a feeling like she was standing with greatness, unmatched ability, the unwavering feral honesty of the jungle predator.

She relaxed her rigid stance against the brick wall and it meant she was that much closer to touching Harry's body pinned so short a distance from hers.

Harry turned from his listening to focus once more on her. Hermione clamped her jaw tightly shut when something damnably akin to a whimper tried to fight its way up her throat. Harry had the look of the cat in his eyes.

"Let's go for a romp," Harry said in a low, silky voice. Merlin, that too still had traces of the jaguar.

"Huh?" she blinked and blushed when she realized she'd been watching his lips.

Harry leaned in just barely closer. "I won't bumble about like some half-wit to be their target in the hopes Voldemort's going to make a mistake. I want to have a bit of fun, Hermione… let's change."

Hermione's eyes opened wide and she looked into his eyes. "Are you serious?"

Harry gave a crooked, confident smile. "Yeah, I am. We're near to the woods," he ticked his head down the far end of the alley, which did indeed lead toward the woods that were thick around both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. "We can give everyone the slip, _that's_ not a problem."

No, she didn't expect it would be. The professors might have more advanced magic on their side, but Harry could hear with the ears of a hunter, see with the eyes of a keen predator. She'd put her faith in that above the teachers any day.

But sneak off when they were supposed to stay in the village?

Stay to be bait, proffered meat, enticing tidbits to tempt a dark wizard…

Hermione began to smile back at him. "Okay."

Harry grinned and then his hand was gone from her waist as he silently padded off toward the end of the alley, away from the main thoroughfare of Hogsmeade. Hermione glanced back once then followed him.

At the end of the two buildings that served as their hide-away Harry stopped and again the turning of his head, the razor-sharp concentration, the difference between Harry the wizard and Harry the animagus as he listened for signs of anyone nearby. Hermione crouched behind him and waited for his cue.

Satisfied they would slip away undetected, Harry reached back blindly for her hand and when she gave it to him he moved forward.

Together, as witch and wizard, they made a dash for the trees. They could have run faster without their hands locked together, but Hermione trusted Harry's assessment that for the moment detection wasn't a concern. The trees weren't far, and this felt far too good.

They broke apart to better navigate the trees when they reached the forest. Harry took the lead, dropped to the ground, and in a matter of seconds Hermione was running gleefully behind a sleek black jaguar.

Hermione couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up.

Harry looked over his shoulder at her and Hermione tumbled purposefully into a patch of fallen leaves. She rolled, twisted, and righted herself only to have dead foliage stuck in her mane.

Harry walked toward her, panting mouth almost mimicking a human smile, and Hermione shook her head to try and knock loose some of the debris. She stretched her forelegs before her and twitched her tail.

Harry approached her, circled her to come at her from the side, and Hermione lowered her head close to the ground and watched him intently.

Harry pounced. With a leap and twist he was standing over her, legs braced on either side of her, and Hermione lifted her head to try and crane her neck to see Harry as he hovered above her. Harry gently butted her head with his, then took the back of her neck between his teeth in a gentle grip.

Hermione keened and flexed her paws, claws extending and piercing layers of dead leaves.

Harry snarled playfully against the nape of her neck, then released his bite-hold. Hermione twisted under him, lightning-quick, and swatted at him. Not to hurt, her claws were safely tucked away. Harry jumped back from her all the same, then darted right back in to tackle her. They went down together, Hermione on her side and Harry pinning her with the bulk of his weight. Harry buried his face in her mane and Hermione batted at his head with a furious tail-twitching to substitute where, as a human, she would have laughed.

They rose and chased one another through the forest. It was not the Forbidden Forest that ringed Hogwarts, which they'd come to know fairly well, so it was all the more exciting for its newness. They came across a stream where they drank then splashed after one another. Then they patrolled through the forest like sentries. They spotted a doe and her fawn and took off after them. The hunt was unimaginably thrilling. To have taken down a kill and tasted fresh blood might have been even sweeter, but Hermione broke them from the pursuit when the poor, terrified animals were within paw's reach. At that critical moment, Hermione had veered straight into Harry and with a roar/scream he'd gone down, Hermione with him, while their prey streaked away into the woods. Harry had given her a good tussle for that stunt. It was amazing.

They had never been the cats for so long. On their morning runs they had barely an hour before they had to go back. It was small doses.

Hermione had lost any notion of time for how long ago they'd left Hogsmeade.

Maybe they could stay cats forever. It felt so good to be strong, fast, sure… wild.

Hermione jerked from a doze and noticed the sky. It was the first indication she'd taken note of as to the length of time they'd been in the woods. It was getting late.

Hermione mewled lowly at Harry to rouse him. After their hunt and play-fight they'd found a sunny spot and, exhausted, sprawled in the grass and carpet of leaves for a nap. They both lay on their sides in the sun-warmed fallen leaves. Harry was stretched out beside her, one powerful black foreleg draped over her side, his head perched on her shoulder, his eyes closed. Harry huffed at her noise but didn't move to get up.

Hermione rolled up to lie with her elbows taking her weight. It jostled Harry and he had no choice but to wake. He lifted his head from her shoulder and moved forward to firmly plant his right paw on the far side of her body. It raked his body along hers, brought him to nearly lying on top of her.

Hermione shifted under him, craned her head back to try and look at him, and turned her tail aside.

Harry shifted higher over her, his right hind leg moved to the far side of her body to join his right forepaw, and for a moment he was covering her. He nipped at the back of her neck.

For a moment she let him, then, slippery as a fish, Hermione shimmied out from under him and turned to face him. Harry lay prim and proper, watching her with bright blue eyes.

Hermione stepped forward, bumped his forehead with hers, and she rubbed against him. He rubbed his head against her in return before she broke away and turned to leave.

Harry rose and followed.

They snuck back into Hogsmeade much as they'd left, through a narrow alleyway. Once again witch and wizard, they moved down the alley toward the main street, but just shy of emerging into the village proper they stopped. Harry turned to Hermione and for a moment it was electric. For a second, she was actually thinking he would do something… reckless. Like maybe _kiss her_.

Then he smiled and started picking leaves out of her hair. Hermione was atwitter at first and it took a moment to register what he was doing, but when she moved past her silly girlish notions she chuckled. Then she looked up at his hair and bit back a laugh. He had leaves and even a bit of twig in his hair.

So they picked each other clean in the dingy little alley, tugged and straightened their rumpled clothing, doing their best to make it seem that neither of them had just gone on a jaunt through the woods.

"There you two are!" a shrill voice startled them both from their task. Hermione looked sharply toward the voice and could feel herself pale when she saw McGonagall, looking fit to be tied, standing at the mouth of the alley with wand in hand.

"Where on earth have you two been?! Have you any idea how long the other professors and I have been looking for you? And just _what_ do you think you are doing?" Her stare could have pierced a shielding charm. Suddenly she gasped and Hermione didn't have to be the brightest witch of her age to realize what McGonagall _thought_ was going on. She and Harry were wedged in an alleyway alone, together, trying to make each other look presentable…

McGonagall turned a particularly worrisome shade of scarlet. "Of all the… to worry us all over _this_?! Get out here this instant!"

Harry gave Hermione a sheepish smile, shrugged, and was the first to slip out of the alley and back to the main road. Hermione emerged after him and saw the street filled with Hogwarts students. They'd already been gathered for the trek back to the castle (which had apparently been stalled while the entire adult population of Hogsmeade sought out Harry and Hermione). Now they were all staring openly at Harry and Hermione as they were pried from their little alley hide-away by an irate Professor McGonagall.

"_You two_…" McGonagall raged, outright fumed, and then was completely lost for words. It was almost painful to watch her grasp for something fitting to say to the pair of them. Hermione had to physically restrain herself from asking 'cat got your tongue?' because it would be cruel and McGonagall looked like she was fit to burst as it was. She was grasping fervently for a fitting reprimand.

But what could she say? In front of the other students, she couldn't very well give away that Harry had been their Judas goat for the weekend. Not when there were Slytherins in the cluster of students. She could certainly give them a tongue-lashing for their 'unseemly' behavior, but if no one actually saw them snogging and carrying on in an atrocious manner how far could she play the 'disgraceful behavior' card? Not enough to warrant her current fury, and she knew that.

In the end, she snapped, "The headmaster will hear of this, rest assured of that, Mister Potter and Miss Granger! Now go join the other students. We're late starting back already because of you two."

Harry and Hermione, putting on the show of appearing suitably cowed and abashed, melted into the mass of Hogwarts students. They were the target of stares, a few girl giggles, as well as pointed cold shoulders, but this time Hermione wasn't bothered by it.

As they started back she leaned in close to Harry and whispered, "We have to talk to Ron." He would have seen their grand entrance the same as everyone else, and she couldn't blame him for believing the same as everyone else would. It did look terribly damning, no matter how off base the popular assumption was. Experience taught them they had to nip these things in the bud when it came to Ron.

Harry looked up, found Ron's unmistakable red hair in the crowd, and gave a wordless nod.


	34. Chapter 34

They didn't have an opportunity to speak with Ron in private until just before bed that night. By that time, Harry and Hermione's incident of being 'caught in a snog-session' by McGonagall was all over the school. It didn't ruffle Harry or Hermione, by then they'd stopped paying attention to the rampant rumors about the two of them, but Hermione was growing concerned about their mutual friend. The more times Ron heard the story, the redder his face became and the sourer his expression grew when he was with her and Harry. Which ended up being a lot. Ron had not stomped off or ignored them as he might have a couple of weeks ago, but he'd clammed up right quick after Hogsmeade. He'd not spoken to either Harry or Hermione since the Three Broomsticks. He communicated instead with grunts, looks, and shrugs. Harry and Hermione exchanged glances at Ron's taciturn shift, but until they could get him alone they couldn't do a thing about it.

Their chance came when the last of the Gryffindors, save the three of them, went up to bed, leaving the common room empty of unwanted ears. It was the privacy for which Hermione had been waiting anxiously.

As soon as the last sound of retreating footsteps faded, Hermione closed shut the book she'd had open in her lap for the past hour pretending to read. She looked up at her two friends in the common room with her.

She was sitting on one end of the couch with Ron way over on the other. The vacancy between them seemed gaping, wide enough for Hagrid to wedge himself into had he been there. Harry was lying on his stomach on the mat situated before the hearth, his chin perched atop his folded hands as he idly looked through a Quidditch magazine laid open flat only a matter of inches from his nose. Given the situation, they'd thought it best they not share the couch as the typically would have. Seemed no reason to aggravate Ron's suspicions further.

Harry glanced toward Hermione as soon as she moved to close her book. It was the first movement from her in a good half-hour, including any pointless page-turning. He could read in her face that she intended to bring it up at last, and he gave a tick of a nod in agreement. He rolled over on to his side facing them and propped his head up with one hand.

"Ron," Hermione turned to look directly at their tight-lipped comrade. He didn't respond when she called his name, and that didn't bode well at all, but Hermione soldiered on; she hadn't expected this was going to be easy. "I know what you're thinking, about earlier, but it wasn't what you think it was."

Ron inhaled twice through his nose, peered at the fire without answering, then he finally turned his head to look at Hermione. "All right, Hermione, what was it then?" In his tense voice and furrowed brow it was visibly plain the effort he was making not to judge them before he'd heard them out. From Ron, it was a monumental gesture, and Hermione found herself touched that he would struggle against his nature on their behalf.

It was a golden chance they dared not shun.

"It…" then she stopped abruptly and darted a look at Harry. What _were_ they going to tell Ron? They hadn't discussed it. It seemed more important to forestall Ron's wild assumptions that were sure to fly, so much so that they'd neglected to discuss the reason they wanted to tell Ron for their spectacle in Hogsmeade. Not to mention it wouldn't have helped their cause any to sneak off alone together to go over their strategy for approaching Ron. Ron had stuck with them the whole rest of the day, though he'd obviously been none to happy about it. Now Hermione was at a loss how to explain away the compromising position she and Harry had seemingly been in when McGonagall dragged them from the alley.

Harry sat up, turned to squarely face the couch, and watched Hermione closely to see how she'd want to proceed. His acquiescing expression spoke volumes. He was going to leave it up to her discretion what and how much they told Ron.

Ron mistook their silent conference for conspiracy. He was, to say the least, put out by the flagrant display enacted right in front of him. Then he looked almost physically pained. "Look, I'm trying really hard here, so if it's not what I think it was, then just tell me what it _was_."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip and looked despairingly at Ron. It was so clear he was _trying_, but what was she to say? The truth seemed the easy answer, but a selfish part of her wanted to keep the cats secret, her and Harry's private escape from their world that had turned so gloomy and grave. Which left the question, if not the truth, what could they tell Ron that would keep their recently repaired friendship from cracking anew? Unbidden, her eyes returned to Harry, as though he could give her some guidance.

"You know," Ron said with a scowl, "you told me you two aren't together, and I _believed_ that. Are you telling me now that was a lie?"

"No!" Hermione blurted. Then she made her decision. To save their friendship with Ron, there was only one thing to do.

She turned to look again at Harry and she could swear he already knew her thoughts from the way he met her eyes. "We have to tell him, Harry."

Ron sighed in disgust. "I knew it."

Harry merely nodded and got up from the floor. As he headed for the boys' dorm Hermione turned her attention back to Ron. "No, Ron, you've got it wrong. We're _not_ together… but there is something Harry and I haven't been completely honest with you about."

Ron studied Hermione carefully, obviously torn about what and how much to believe. Hermione wished she could just wave her wand and fix this, make it easier or unnecessary.

Harry returned to the common room with his father's cloak in hand.

Ron went from suspicious to bewildered when he recognized the invisibility cloak. "Hang on a minute, where are we going?"

Hermione stood and stepped toward Harry. She looked up, met Harry's gaze, and hoped he felt the same as she did about telling Ron their secret. She _thought_ she knew, but did she really? She dreaded to think Harry would ever resent her for making this decision for the both of them without ever actually talking to him before-hand. Yet when she looked into his eyes, they reflected only trust and complete faith in her judgment. It bolstered Hermione's resolve that this was the right course of action.

She turned to Ron and said, "We can't tell you here, Ron. You'll just have to trust us. I promise, we'll tell you everything… like we should have from the start."

Ron stared at Hermione in close scrutiny, turned the same expression on Harry, then stood with a fed-up wave of his arms. "Oh, bugger it, fine, but this better be good."

The three of them barely fit under the cloak anymore, and Hermione, sandwiched in the middle, felt almost claustrophobic. The sense of suffocation was intensified by the fact that Ron was tense on her right, on the cusp of another row with the both of them, and Harry, on her left, knew it as well as she. It was sad. They used to cram up under this same cloak, the three of them, and steal off in the middle of the night, and it had always been a thrill, a sense of adventure. Now it was fraught with hostility on the brink of erupting. Hermione ached to think how things could change so much, how they could bring friends closer while at the same time pushing other friends apart. But hopefully, after tonight, things between the three of them would be a bit more like they'd been before.

Outside, the sky was overcast and the grounds nearly pitch black. They dare not cast _lumos_ to light their way, at least not until they were much farther from the castle than the metaphorical front stoop. Ron hesitated, clearly noticing the same poor visibility that Hermione had. Hermione briefly but quickly took hold of his wrist to still him and bid him 'wait' without saying anything. Then she waited on Harry. After a moment, when he moved forward, she was right at his side. She tugged gently on Ron's wrist, and his muscles stiffened in protest under her fingers, then he squished in even closer to her side and picked his way over the ground blindly.

As they made their way over the grounds, a light dusting of snow began to fall. Hermione shivered and pressed tighter into Harry's side. Soon afterward, Hermione felt Harry's arm close around her waist. It warded off the chill that had gripped her and she welcomed the warmth. Packed together as they were, though, Ron would feel Harry hook his arm around her waist, and quickly Hermione snaked out her own arm and hugged Ron close to her right side. He was awkward and uncomfortable in her hold, but she'd rather him think they were all linking together to make their collective steps easier than believe Harry was doing something boyfriendly with her.

Harry led them, unerringly, toward the woods. Hermione had known at once that's where they would go. As they got closer, however, Ron jerked to a stop and broke the perfect quiet of their exodus when he realized where they were going. "That's the Forbidden Forest," he hissed in a shocked whisper.

Hermione tightened her hold around his waist. "We know, Ron."

He did not take kindly to their apparent intent to walk into the dangerous woods with full knowledge of their actions. "Are you two _mental_?"

"You'll be safe. Please, Ron. We have to get out of sight of the castle."

Ron still balked for a moment, but Hermione tugged insistently on him, implored him with physical action to keep moving, and with a grumble Ron followed. It seemed to take less urging on Hermione's part to have Ron tuck in close to her as they slipped into the night-black forest. After picking their way beyond a few trees, Ron almost reluctantly brought up his arm and looped it around Hermione's waist much as she clung to him. She wasn't sure how Harry would feel about that, but for now it was progress. And very much like the old days, Ron's arm on one side of her, Harry's on the other.

When Harry deemed them a safe distance from the castle, he threw off the cloak that had concealed the trio. When they were no longer forced to hunker down and press together, Harry stepped a pace away from Ron… and for half that distance pulled Hermione after him with the arm that lingered a second on her waist.

Having had time for her eyes to adjust normally to the darkness, she could just barely make out Ron's features as he stood facing them. He looked uneasy. Small wonder, since the few times he'd been in the Forbidden Forest at night it had been to learn just why it was forbidden to Hogwarts students. The sounds of the night were thick and eerie around them. She couldn't really fault Ron for being a tad jumpy… if she didn't know she could become a beast fit and capable of fending off any creature the forest harbored, she might be a little leery of this ominous meeting place, too.

"Okay, what's so bloody secret that we had to come out _here_ to talk?" Ron asked, edgy.

Hermione glanced at Harry only to see him standing back, aloof, the watcher tonight. She'd give him that. Hermione pressed her lips together to steel herself. With a breath she turned and faced Ron. "You have to swear you'll keep this a secret, Ron."

"Keep _what_ a secret?!"

"Just swear… on our friendship, promise you won't tell anyone."

Ron bristled. Snow began to fall with increased regularity, landing wet and pin-prick cold on Hermione's cheeks and dampening her hair. "You know," Ron retorted, "I think our friendship's been stretched a bit thin this year, and I have to say it looks to me to be getting thinner. Just tell me what the bloody hell is going on." For a beat, Harry and Hermione were equally quiet. Ron shook his head. "I feel like I barely know you two anymore!"

Hermione frowned at him. This was getting uglier than she'd expected. "If friendship isn't enough for you to swear by, then swear on Harry's life you'll never speak of this to anyone, because if you do it _could_ mean his life."

Ron stopped cold at that. Even at odds with Harry, he still could not abide by ever endangering Harry's life. Hermione was glad to see that, at least, was still unchanged.

"I swear," Ron finally vowed, and for that at least the venom was gone from his voice.

Hermione nodded, satisfied Ron would not betray their confidence, then tried to think of where to start. She wasn't sure how far back to go. Should she start with their decision during the summer to try to become animagi? What about their months of preparation, or Kimmy's invaluable assistance? Should she walk through the steps, retell it like a story in one of her much-loved books?

Ron was watching her expectantly.

In the end, she went with the simplicity of directness. "Harry and I are animagi."

Ron's mouth dropped open. Quite suddenly the sounds of the night seemed to amplify in the comparative dead silence that had engulfed the three students. Ron stood there and gaped at Hermione as if she'd just confessed to being Snape's illegitimate daughter.

Hermione held her breath in wait for how he was going to react.

Ron closed his mouth. His eyebrows drew together in a burgeoning frown. Then he stiffened. "_Sure_ you are."

Hermione blinked, taken aback by his response. Of all his reactions, disbelief hadn't been one she'd expected. Anger she'd anticipated most, and there was a fair bit of that, but flat-out not believing them…

"We are. Harry and I spent the whole summer working on it. See, at end of last term I checked out this book—"

Ron cut her off with a dismissive flick of his hand. "You know, of you I'd expect a better lie than that, Hermione." Ron angrily took a step toward to Hermione, for what purpose she couldn't begin to guess. She never found out, because Harry broke from his sentinel-like position on the fringe to immediately move up and stand directly behind her. Ron saw it, stopped, and very nearly sneered. "If you two are going to snog then fine. I know I've no say in it, but _please_, just do me the favor of being honest with me.

"Did it ever occur to you that I might just be okay with it? I may not _like_ it, but I can learn to deal with you and Harry being together." Ron stepped away from them in disgust. "Instead I get _this_! _Animagi_!

"I'm going back to the castle. Good night."

With that, Ron turned on his heel and started storming off, for the moment his indignation seemed to have overpowered his fear of the Forbidden Forest. He was that upset. Hermione watched him leaving and felt helpless. She had no idea what to do. They hadn't lied!

Harry, it seemed, would take the decision out of her hands. She saw his powerful panther form move past her and head toward Ron with nary a sound to mark his passage. At a loss herself, she stood back and watched to see what Harry planned to do.

Harry swiftly and silently slipped through the trees, circled around Ron as the redhead marched back toward the castle, and like a shadow of the night itself Harry stepped out of the bushes a mere foot in front of Ron.

"_Ahhh_!" Ron screamed and jumped back from the panther that had seemingly materialized in his path.

Hermione rushed up to Ron and steadied him, "It's okay! It's just Harry, Ron."

Ron appeared thoroughly shaken as he looked, with saucer-like eyes, between Hermione and the large black cat that had come upon him from the darkness without warning. "_Harry_?!" Ron squeaked. The panther lifted its head a fraction higher, and reflexively Ron went for his wand.

"Don't," Hermione slapped his hand away and grabbed the redhead tightly by the arm. "It's _Harry_, Ron. Look," she pointed with her other hand at Harry's cat form, "see the scar?"

Ron, still twitching to draw his wand, reluctantly looked toward the panther again. He stared a moment, then he began to frown when he saw the distinctive lightning-shaped white mark on the animal's brow. His frown deepened as he started to believe just maybe the black beast before him was his good mate.

Ron glanced at Hermione, seeking assurance, then looked back at the cat and stammered, "Ha-Harry?"

Harry stepped out from the trees and moved slowly toward Ron. Ron took an instinctive step back, but Hermione did not move. She knew far better than to fear Harry in panther form. Harry walked right up to her, rubbed his shoulder against her legs, and watched Ron steadily with familiar blue eyes. Hermione reached down to touch Harry on the head, but she kept her eyes on Ron.

She could almost watch the struggle wash over his face. The evidence before him was undeniable. Hermione was no animal bewitcher… she would not have a panther at her feet, submitting to her hand, unless it was no true panther at all. The white mark in the exact shape of Harry's scar would be a dead giveaway. But still, to think that the young wizard Ron had known for years had this capability within him to become this powerful animal…

Hermione decided to spare him any kind of reaction right away. "Harry and I have been coming into the Forbidden Forest every morning on our runs to get used to our animagus forms. That's where we were when we disappeared from Hogsmeade today. We were in the woods, in our animagus forms. We _weren't_ off snogging."

'No… no, I… I suppose not. I mean, Harry couldn't very well snog in that state," Ron conceded stiltedly. He took a wary step closer to them. Harry lifted his chin to look up at Ron, his clear eyes steady.

"Is that really you, Harry?"

Harry lifted a paw and batted at thin air.

Ron chuckled. "Blimey… I… and you," he glanced toward Hermione, "you can, uh, change into something, too?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, I can. I become a lioness."

Ron looked thunderstruck. Then… "_Wicked_."

Hermione smiled hopefully.

Ron opened his mouth to speak, paused, shuffled around a bit bashfully, then asked, "Could, uh… d'you think I could see it?"

"What, the lioness?"

Ron nodded vigorously.

Hermione offered a very careful smirk. "You're not going to get scared and run off, are you?"

Ron's face screwed at the insinuation. "No." Although it seemed perfectly well to ask him since he'd nearly bolted from Harry on first sight of his animagus form.

Hermione crouched down to the ground and with well-practiced ease transformed into the lioness. She gave a shake of her head that ruffled her mane. Harry looked over at her then back at Ron.

"Blimey!" Ron croaked as he stared between the two cats that were moments ago his friends.

Hermione cautiously approached Ron, who tensed but did not flee. She touched his hand with her nose then sat at his feet and looked up calmly at him. Ron gave a nervous laugh.

Hermione returned to Harry's side and changed back. Following her lead, Harry transformed back to wizard form a second after her. It left them standing next to one another as though nothing unusual had happened. Ron just looked flabbergasted.

"I know we should have told you earlier, Ron, and I'm sorry we didn't," Hermione said. "At first we didn't know if we'd be able to become animagi so there seemed no need, and once we were animagi you weren't speaking to us, and then… I guess it just got to be habit to keep it between the two of us."

Ron ruffled a hand through his hair, still out of sorts from the discovery. "I just… that's… that's so _amazing_. How'd you two ever manage?"

For the first time, Harry spoke. "It wasn't easy."

Ron gave a 'no doubt' snort and said when a thought struck him, "You two are rogue animagi, aren't you? Not registered or anything? That's why it's a huge secret, isn't it?"

"Yes... and we don't want Voldemort to find out what we can do," Harry replied evenly.

"Yeah… yeah, I can imagine that would be a bad laugh." Ron's expression turned resolute. "Well, no worries from me, guys. I won't tell a soul."

Hermione smiled in honest relief. "_Thank you_, Ron."

"Wow… I can't get over it. You two animagi. That is so…" Ron stopped and cocked his head, "hey, what are you going to tell Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore?" Harry asked in bafflement (and with perhaps a little iciness to his tone for his recent dissension with the headmaster). "We'd not planned on telling him anything about our being animagi."

"No," Hermione trailed as she caught on to Ron's train of thought, "but we'll have to tell him something to explain this afternoon. Remember McGonagall was going to report to Dumbledore about our up and disappearing from the village."

Harry frowned.

Hermione thought hard for a moment, then groaned inwardly and bit the bullet. "We'll just have to say we were snogging."

Harry's eyebrows ticked upward and Ron snorted, though he tried to cover it with a fake cough.

"The entire school thinks that anyway, and now that Ron knows it's not true," she glanced toward Ron, who nodded in affirmation. She looked back to Harry and continued, "We can use it to our advantage. Let Dumbledore think that's what we were doing. It's better he think that than know the truth."

"I don't know…" Harry said dubiously, "will Dumbledore believe that we were off snogging?"

"Oh, definitely," Ron said immediately.

Both Harry and Hermione looked over at him. Ron gave an expansive shrug, "What? He will."

"We might get into a spot of trouble for sneaking off to snog," Hermione added quickly, "but not near as much trouble as we'd be in if he knew we were rogue animagi."

Harry sighed and shrugged in defeat. "Okay. If you think he'll buy it, then that's our plan. We were off snogging."

Hermione nodded then shivered when a snowflake landed on her eyelashes. It reminded her of the snow coming down. "I think we'd best head back before it's noticed that we're gone."

When they squeezed back underneath the cloak together, Hermione sandwiched in the middle once again, she noted with relief that it didn't feel nearly so unbearably crowded or suffocating.

* * *

In his dreams, he was free. The jungle was verdant and close on all sides of him. He was the lord of it all by virtue of his prowess. His speed and his strength and his power bequeathed the jungle to him. He ruled with fang and claw. No enemy could threaten him here.

He raced through the trees and the ferns and the thick shrubs with a master's skill, never a misstep taken. He leapt and it was close to flying. He ran so fast he believed nothing could ever touch him. Tapirs, capybaras, peccaries, and fleet-footed tropical deer scattered from his path. Birds sang overhead in exotic serenades, as though they sang for him. Sunlight sliced through miniscule breaks in the thick canopy to strain to touch him, like a rare ebony gemstone. But they could only reach him for a bare second, could only slide down the length of his form longingly before he was beyond their reach. Uncatchable, even to the sun.

He burst forth from a curtain-like stand of ferns, pushed through their hanging leaves as easily as he might part a veil of mist, and he stopped. Before him snaked a stream, a sliver of blue amid the myriad shades of green. On the far side of the water a lioness was crouched down to drink. When he came upon her, she looked up at him. She lifted her head, muzzle dripping crystalline beads of water. She sat up regally and watched him with untroubled calm. Her tongue flicked out and licked her lips. Her chocolate-brown eyes were steady as she regarded him. She had a fringe of a chestnut-brown mane that was dappled golden and tan by the dancing sunlight.

He moved toward her. She was another lord here, she ruled with the same power and fang and claw as he. Here was a creature he did not rule above. But her, too, he would have.

"Harry…"

Still tangled in the images of his dream, Harry flicked open his eyes and saw, hovering over him, chestnut brown hair, chocolate-brown eyes, that presence of strong certainty.

He moved on cat-like reflex. Harry's hands shot out and he grabbed her around the shoulders. He pulled, twisted, and within a matter of seconds he had Hermione pinned on his bed beneath him. He held himself aloft over her, on his knees and his hands which were still locked around her upper arms. His eyes flashed and the dream vanished, and only then did he really recognize what he'd done in the waking world.

Hermione, who'd been so roughly snared and pinned without warning, instantly laughed. Harry loosened his hold on her and smiled sheepishly, relieved she wasn't angry. He couldn't rightly say what had gotten into him. He'd been in the jungle, and there had been a lioness…

"For Merlin's sake, Harry! Get your _own room _for that!" Dean wailed from the other side of the room.

Harry blushed furiously. He didn't know the other boys were in the room, too. Quickly, he scrambled off of his bed and off of Hermione. He turned, against his better judgment, and saw the blurry shape of Dean's dark face a blot in his maroon-and-gold themed bed. The pale blob that was snickering would be Seamus.

Harry snatched up his glasses and brought the world into embarrassing focus. Ron was in the next bed over, looking at Harry with a slightly beleaguered look on his face… which Harry supposed was better than spitting mad.

Harry turned back to Hermione and for a second his heart lodged firmly in his throat. She'd not moved from where he'd left her, laid out on his bed, amid his rumpled sheets. Her hair was fanning out against the mattress, gold and chestnut curls as the sun crept in through the window. She looked completely unperturbed, instead almost self-assured as she smiled up at him.

Harry's blood flow took a radical turn south and he cleared his throat. "Hermione… what are you doing?"

"You, Ron, and I have somewhere to be, remember?"

Right. Dumbledore. Wandless magic.

"Oh… uh… right."

Hermione got up off his bed and bade, "Get dressed the two of you, I'll meet you down in the common room," then she breezed out of the boys' dorm like she was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Harry watched after her, his stomach turned upside-down.

"Blimey, Harry," Seamus said, "for once I'd actually call you a lucky bastard."

Harry smirked and turned back to his bed. As he hastily made it he caught whiffs of Hermione's smell on the sheets. He hoped the house elves didn't change the sheets today… he'd like to find out if the faint smell would hold until tonight when he crawled back into bed.


	35. Chapter 35

Harry was starting to feel decidedly leery. In fact, the feeling was very much akin to one he'd experienced often in Potions class when he _knew_ he'd added in the ingredients incorrectly and was just waiting for the cauldron to explode.

He, Ron, and Hermione had been in Dumbledore's office learning the basic premises behind wandless magic for well over an hour, and the headmaster had yet to breathe a single word about his and Hermione's little escapade in Hogsmeade yesterday. He hardly believed the headmaster was going to ignore it, not when he'd made it such a clear command on Friday that he was to stay well within sight of the professors. A command he and Hermione had flagrantly and knowingly disregarded.

If Hermione was troubled by the white elephant in the room, she didn't show it. She was sitting next to Harry on the bench that Dumbledore had conjured for the three of them when they first arrived, and she had her notebook open on her lap. Her quill was scribbling furiously over the pages. Every time Harry glanced over at her he couldn't stop a smile from tugging at his mouth. It was so very Hermione of her, right down to the crinkle in her brow and the way she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she took down nearly every word Dumbledore said. If there were any misgivings there, she had them firmly buried beneath the mantle of model pupil.

As he watched her take down all the details of Dumbledore's lesson, it occurred to Harry that he'd need to borrow them from her after they left. He'd become so expectant of the scolding they would receive that he'd not been paying the utmost of attention to the headmaster.

Though from what he _had_ heard, he doubted pouring over Hermione's meticulous notes would do much good. Wandless magic was perhaps the most wily, unpredictable, uncooperative magical ability he'd ever heard of. For all intents and purposes, it sounded like Hermione had been right (though that was far from shocking). Wandless magic seemed to be purely innate. Even Harry, paying only sporadic attention, heard Dumbledore several times comment on the fact that it could not be learned. If one had the raw potential it could be honed and refined, but if the capability wasn't already there one might as well hope to spontaneously turn into a minotaur (and from the sound of things, the latter seemed more likely to happen).

Ron, on Harry's right, was concentrating so intently on Dumbledore that his face was screwed and Harry would lay odds that the redhead would have a headache by day's end. Harry just might too if this business of not speaking a word to Hogsmeade yesterday kept up.

"Headmaster," Hermione asked as she raised her hand, though it hardly seemed necessary since it was only the three of them. Ron rubbed at his forehead and tugged on his bangs.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asked in a completely normal voice, no hint of disappointment or anger. It was going to drive Harry stark raving mad.

Hermione lowered her hand and sat up straight, her expression intense and focused on her question. "I have a question about magical emissions in very young witches and wizards. Like the things that happened when I was little that clued my parents in on the fact I wasn't a normal muggle. I know they're common in most witches and wizards up to the age of four, which would suggest that at some point we're all able to do wandless magic, but I've never understood precisely why most of us seem to lose that ability as we get older."

Dumbledore nodded and sat down across from them in a cushioned armchair. "Ah, yes… does present quite the puzzle, doesn't it? Let me see if I can find a proper way to put this." Dumbledore tapped his fingertips together in front of his chin and rolled his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other as though the problem was taffy. Once he hit upon a tactic he fancied he lowered his hands to fold them over his stomach. "Since you're muggle-born and your parents are doctors in their own rights, perhaps this will best elucidate matters for you.

"Am I not correct in saying that when a human child is born, and shortly thereafter, he or she never has more active brain cells throughout the rest of their life than they do at that tender age?"

"Right. From infancy onward unused brain pathways atrophy while frequently used pathways become all the stronger."

"Wandless magic is quite nearly the same for witches and wizards. We are never more capable or predisposed to unaided magical use than in early childhood. But those abilities, for most individuals, fade. Ironically, taking up a wand greatly hastens that process."

"Like the neural pathways that strengthen as opposed to the ones that are rarely used?"

"Precisely. In a sense, you might say that the wand becomes a crutch and quickly the witch or wizard in question is completely dependent upon it for magical functioning. There was a time, albeit a long time ago, when wands were unknown and all magic in existence was wandless. There were, of course, far fewer practicing witches and wizards in those days, and Potions was more widely studied.

"When those with magical inclinations discovered a tool could be made that amplified that buried magical potential within them, and directed it… you could say it was a magic renaissance; it led to an explosion in magical culture, even if it marked the last days of prominent wandless magic."

"But it's not all gone," Ron piped in, his hair a fright from his tugging and worrying, "I mean, you can do wandless magic."

Dumbledore made a 'hmmm' sound in the back of his throat. "Not all gone, but exceedingly rare. And at present beyond our powers to coerce. I fear there is precious little that I can truly tell you about the mechanics of wandless magic."

Harry glanced at Hermione's pages of notes so far and bit his tongue from openly contradicting the headmaster.

"I should think that will do for now," Dumbledore said and moved to stand. Hermione opened her mouth, eager to let fly another question, but at the last second she locked her lips closed. The effort she was exerting to leave her queries unasked was almost visibly painful to watch, but Harry wasn't interested in spending all day with the headmaster.

"I trust, Miss Granger, that your diligent notes will serve to fill in any holes in Mister Weasley and Mister Potter's notes?"

Neither Harry nor Ron had jotted down a single word, and the headmaster knew that. Maybe next time he should at least bring a parchment and quill and scribble a few recurring themes down. Although Harry could see that page of notes now; '_put down wand, stare at quill, try and make it dance… patience… patience… head-ache potion… more patience… your wand won't save you now… damn quill won't move… don't go spare… patience… I hate you, quill… the centaurs will eat me… I think Trelawney has the right of things_'. He could think of Potions assignments he'd rather do, but Hermione would no doubt run herd on him and Ron to at least give it an honest try. Honestly, the idea of wandless magic was infinitely more alluring than the exercises it took to actually learn it (if one even _could_ learn it).

"Yes, sir," Hermione answered as she packed away her notes.

"Good, then. For a first lesson, I should think that was satisfactory."

'Our definitions of satisfactory differ,' Harry thought, but he wasn't looking to get into trouble for being contrary with the elder wizard. He had the sense he was treading lightly as it was.

The three of them stood and began to move toward the office door.

"Mister Potter, Miss Granger, if you would stay behind a moment; I'd like to speak with you privately."

And there it was.

Ron cast them a sympathetic look but left the room with haste. Friendship only went so far in the face of an unhappy Albus Dumbledore.

When Harry and Hermione turned back to Dumbledore the headmaster was regarding them closely. One would think they'd just claimed to be from a different dimension for all the scrutiny he was sending their way. He'd gone unbearably still and contemplative in those scant seconds since he'd dismissed their lesson. Harry fought the urge to squirm under his gaze. The headmaster had an insanely penetrating look when he aimed to, and once leveled it seemed as though Dumbledore could look straight to the truth of matters. For a horrifying, maddening moment Harry felt like the headmaster was peering right into him and could see the jaguar curled inside him. And for an instant, he could almost swear the jaguar inside him sensed the challenge and was crouched to spring, fangs bared and roaring. It was with a quick grab for control over the beast that Harry quieted the animalistic force in him. This threat was beyond him in any form. There was no way to stand against Dumbledore's magic. And it seemed, with that flash of reasoning, the jaguar noted the greater fighter and turned to flee, spitting and glowering over its shoulder as it faded back into that deep place inside him, tucked away and secure.

Dumbledore blinked and said heavily, "I trust I don't need to tell you why I've kept you."

Harry couldn't help an involuntary glance at Hermione on his left. She was rigid, her expression schooled… it was Hermione Granger willing to take her licks. "No, sir," she answered for the pair of them. Harry looked back to the headmaster and Dumbledore cut a quick and sharp gaze on Harry.

"I must say that I was most disappointed in the both of you when Professor McGonagall told me what you two did."

Surprisingly, despite his ire and indignant annoyance, that remark from the wise old headmaster still managed to sock Harry in the gut. He'd anticipated anger, in the back of his mind he remembered the kind of fits of rage Vernon Dursley would go into when Harry really screwed up, but this was completely different. There wasn't anger so much as there was sadness. Wounded feelings, shaken trust. It settled sickly in Harry's stomach. He'd not been braced for that.

"Have you any excuse for yourselves?" Dumbledore asked.

Just then, Harry wished they had. At least something other than the truth, which they mustn't tell him. But he wished they had an answer that would take the disappointment out of Dumbledore's voice. Harry dropped his eyes to the floor and pinched his lips tightly together. This hurt was really unexpected.

"We… Harry and I…" Hermione faltered, whether on the lie or perhaps plagued by the same crush of guilt as Harry he couldn't say. "We just… we wanted to be alone… together."

Dumbledore didn't speak for a time, and Harry couldn't bring himself to look up from the rug. When the headmaster did speak, it was still in that damnable tone of having been let down. "Honestly, I expected more from you both."

Hermione made a few noises, false starts of perhaps appeals to Dumbledore's kindness, but they never quite made it into words. Harry knew he would have done no better.

"Do not mistake me; I am not reprimanding your courtship unto itself. I have been headmaster of Hogwarts for a long time and have watched countless friendships blossom into relationships within this school's walls…"

Harry looked up at that. He found Dumbledore perched on the edge of his desk looking back and forth between him and Hermione.

"I even try to be understanding of the fact that you two, especially Harry, have faced trials and life-changing challenges beyond your years.

"But even that does not excuse your behavior. You knew how important it was, _for your safety_, that you stay within sight of the teachers sent to protect you.

"Have you any concept of the panic you caused when you two up and disappeared for hours for the ignoble purpose of 'making out'? Poor Professor McGonagall was certain you had both been kidnapped by Voldemort right out from under our noses. Consequent concern for all the other students' safety was sufficient to give poor Professor Flitwick a case of the black-out hiccups."

That cinched it. Harry now actually sort of regretted kipping off for a jaunt in the woods.

"No, sir," Hermione said in a thin voice, "we didn't… we… we didn't think of that."

"I should hope not. I'd hate to believe that either of you would be capable of understanding the repercussions and carrying on anyway." Dumbledore sighed and looked toward the paintings on his wall. If the past headmasters had any advice they weren't in the mood for sharing, for not a one of them spoke.

"But perhaps some of this is my doing," Dumbledore finally said. "Perhaps I should have told you of our plans for Hogsmeade weekend before-hand. I could see how adolescent, impetuous anger so recently ignited might cause two young students to behave irrationally, to act out against the feeling that they are being used."

'It was my idea," Harry volunteered suddenly. Hermione shot a look at him, but he pressed onward. "I talked her into sneaking off with me."

"I'd had little doubt about that," Dumbledore replied with the ghost of a smile. Harry could see Hermione's jaw drop. His own eyes widened. What exactly did _that_ mean?

The headmaster chuckled. "You forget that I have seen this dance play out thousands of times before. With your own parents, in fact, Harry. Lily and James were a couple apt to 'vanish' mysteriously only to resurface some time later quite disheveled for their absence. And it's usually the boy's idea."

Hermione snorted.

"And it's noble of you to accept blame, but sadly it won't stand the test of reason in this instance. I do not for a moment think you could 'talk' Miss Granger into anything she didn't consent to from the start."

Harry had to crack a smile. Dumbledore had that right.

"This once, I think I could appease myself with the rationale that you two were not thinking clearly, because one's first boyfriend or girlfriend does tend to addle the brain, and _that_ is why you acted so disgracefully at Hogsmeade. I might even feel generous enough to forget the whole fiasco ever happened, as it would conveniently allow me to also put out of my mind the mistakes I made in dealing with you two. Provided that nothing of this nature ever happens again."

Harry could hardly believe his ears, and he had to steal a look at Hermione to make sure he'd read between the lines correctly. Her cautious expression of hope confirmed everything Harry had thought he'd heard. They were going to get off without being punished, as long as they swore to never be so disobedient again. To avoid that sick feeling of disappointing Dumbledore, he'd swear it anyway.

"We promise," Hermione said, and Harry met Dumbledore's eyes and nodded earnest agreement.

"Very well, then. Forgiven and forgotten.

"I suspect Mister Weasley is wearing a groove in the floor just outside my office door. You two had best join him before he digs me a most ill-placed ditch."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look of disbelief and made a quick exit. As predicted, Ron was waiting impatiently for them just outside the headmaster's room. When he saw them emerge he pounced. "Oiy, how bad was it? Detention for a week? With Snape even, I suppose. Oh, Harry, tell me he didn't ban you from next week's Quidditch match, the Gryffindors haven't a chance to beat Ravenclaw without you!"

"Relax, Ron," Harry said with a relieved smile. "We're not in trouble."

"Huh? Why not? Uh, I mean, that's great! But…"

Hermione started down the hall and both boys, just like the old days, took up flanking positions on either side of her without a second thought. "Oh, it doesn't really matter, I'm just glad it's done with. I'd worried it would be a lot more difficult than that, I was sure he'd start asking questions…" Hermione slowed to a halt. When Harry came abreast with her and likewise stopped he could see a look of deep thought on her face. Ron did, too, and looked to Harry in question. He could offer only a shake of his head and shrug. He still didn't have any notion as to the inner-workings of Hermione's mind.

Hermione suddenly looked up at Harry. "Harry… Dumbledore didn't even _ask_ if we were together, he just _assumed_ we were."

Harry thought back to Dumbledore's chiding words. "You're right…"

Ron harrumphed. "Told you."

They both looked toward their friend.

Ron offered a crooked smile and awkward shrug, then headed off down the hall ahead of them. Harry thought the whole exchange rather odd, but that seemed to be the course for the day. He was still wrapping his head around the idea that Dumbledore had fallen prey to the same rumors the rest of Hogwarts had. If _anyone_ would see clear to the truth, surely Dumbledore would have. But apparently not. It was another surprise to add to the day's list.

Hermione watched after Ron a moment, expression taut with furiously racing thoughts, then she reached out, grabbed Harry's arm, and started after Ron. Harry, with a smirk, took up right at her side as they trailed after Ron.

* * *

Nearly four weeks passed, and things were the closest to normal they had been for a long time for the three friends. In fact, better in some ways than they'd ever been. Harry and Hermione were getting on well with Ron again, once they'd out and shared their animagus secret with him. In hindsight, it made Harry wish they'd told Ron from the start. He couldn't figure why they hadn't. Once that burden of deception had been lifted, it seemed as though a giant had physically carried off the huge weight of their troubles with them. Even Ron and Hermione were getting on better than ever. Ron was more mindful not to hurt Hermione's feelings, and when she stopped expecting barbs and japes at every turn, she relaxed more around Ron. More than once, Harry had come upon the two of them laughing about something or other. He couldn't remember ever doing that before; more likely he'd come across them fighting and have to play monkey in the middle as they tried to win him to their side of the argument. It was amazing to just sit down with them and join in the laughter instead.

Snow had begun falling with thickening regularity at Hogwarts until Harry and Hermione were bounding through drifts of snow on their morning runs. Hermione had started performing a heat charm on their way back to melt away their paw prints. It meant they had to be more careful where once they'd run with unfettered alacrity, but in Harry's estimations it was a small price to pay for the hour of going wild with her.

Ron had come around well and good to his two best friends being animagi, too. At first he'd been a little hesitant, almost borderline shy. He'd sneak in off-hand questions when no one was near, like 'what's it feel like' and 'have you ever eaten a squirrel?' When his inquiries weren't rebuffed, instead answered readily, Ron grew bolder. By now, he was quite the eager beaver to know the ins and outs of his friends the jaguar and the lioness. He'd actually approached Hermione once and asked what he'd need to do if he wanted to become an animagus, too… he listened to only half of the complex, complicated process before he threw up his hands in surrender and contented himself with being the good friend of animagi instead.

The wandless magic hadn't been going so well. In fact, it was almost exactly as Harry had anticipated it would be. Most of the time they sat in front of a parchment or quill and stared at it, willing it to move while they refrained from using their wands. Sometimes it was under Dumbledore's supervision, sometimes Hermione had them practicing it in the common room (which earned them no end of queer looks from their fellow Gryffindors for sitting and staring at their quills). It seemed to make no difference, because the bloody parchments and quills never moved. Once Ron was convinced he'd done it, the feather end of his quill ruffled, but it turned out Seamus had just opened the window and let in a breeze. Harry was beginning to think the ruddy quills would never move. It didn't stop Hermione's persistence that they attend the sessions with Dumbledore and practice in some of their free time. Harry tried, because she was so set on them succeeding and he didn't care to see her disheartened should he give up, but he wasn't holding out high hopes of ever wielding the power of wandless magic. As he'd predicted from the start. Only wizards like Dumbledore could do things that impressive, so on the whole Harry wasn't let down by his inability to move a simple parchment. He'd never expected he'd master the ability anyway.

The failure at wandless magic was truthfully the only sour spot in life at Hogwarts as of late. Even under the cloud of Voldemort's return, a blackness on the brightest of days, life seemed to fit in ways it hadn't before.

Harry was even more forgiving in his opinion of Divination, the class he and Ron were currently sitting.

"Today," the bespectacled woman crooned in her dreamy, oscillating voice, "you will have the pleasure to sample the Draught of the Foreknowing."

Harry was half-listening. His good graces toward the Divination teacher might have been improved, but he wasn't near to the point of hanging on every word or, Merlin forbid, taking notes.

But what the professor had said obviously meant something to Parvati, because from her bean bag seat a few tables over she gasped.

"Yes, dear," Trelawney nodded, "I knew you would know of it."

"But, Professor!" Parvati said in an awed tone, "The Draught of the Foreknowing is very powerful…" her voice dropped to an almost conspiratorial whisper, "it is allowed for us to have it?"

"Yes, _powerful_ indeed, and for those of you who have already demonstrated possession of the gift of inner sight it may be overwhelming. But don't fear, the headmaster has granted special permission for it to be distributed to the class just once, and Madam Pomfrey knows she may expect some charges from this lesson."

Parvati looked astounded, equal parts anticipation and fear.

Harry cast Ron a look that meant to communicate just what he thought of Trelawney's hype, but the redhead was half-asleep and didn't take notice of Harry's attempt.

"What's Draught of the Foreknowing?" Neville asked.

"Oh, I knew you'd ask, dear boy. The Draught of the Foreknowing is a very potent potion used in divination. Scores of witches and wizards, longing to have the power to know the future but sadly not endowed with the gift, created instead a powerful concoction to allow them to peer into the mists of time. With this," she turned to gesture to the jug on her table, next to her murky crystal ball, "the most ordinary witch or wizard _may_ chance to see their own future. But beware!" she swung back to face the class, obviously going for dramatic effect, but her turn was so sharp that her long bead necklaces whipped about and coiled around her upraised hand. As she disentangled herself (and while some students in the back snickered), she pressed on, "But beware, for the future may be filled with dark shadows and omens of ill fortune. Or you may not even be there at all."

Parvati squeaked. The high-pitched noise jerked Ron awake and he looked around, for a moment uncertain where he was.

"If this Draught's so great, how come loads of people aren't using it?" asked Draco snottily.

Harry hated it when he had to concede that the Malfoy had asked a good question.

Trelawney wrung her hands like it was a dire thing to have to say to children. "Because it has its limitations, boy, oh truly, it has a cruel specialty. Unsettling to some, how narrow its focus.

"You see, the Draught permits someone to see only _their_ _own_ future. That can be the most terrifying sight of all and too much for many who taste the Draught." Trelawney paused then added in a slightly caustic tone, "And some would say such a tiny view of the future is next to useless, but don't be fooled! It's fear talking."

Trelawney turned back to her table and poured a serving of the pink and purple potion in the jar into a cup. "But let us not linger on those frightened few and their opinions. To the potion. What you will have to do is drink the potion and turn your eyes to your balls."

Seamus snorted.

Trelawney misheard it for a whimper. "No, no, fear not, for I will be here to watch over your journey to your unlived days, your coming years. The visions you see may be terrifying, but I will be at hand to pull you back to the here and now. Do not be afraid of being lost to time.

"Who wishes to go first? Harry," she shuffled across the room toward Harry and Ron's table.

Harry sat back as though being accosted by a beggar. "Uh, no, really… I…"

Trelawney pressed the cup into his hand, ignoring his protests. "Now don't be scared. Take it."

Harry scowled as he took the cup from Trelawney. His opinion of Divination was slipping perilously again.

The whole class was watching him.

Ron was smirking too much for Harry's liking, but cuffing him on the ear with the professor only a foot away wasn't one of his better ideas.

Instead, he peered down into the cup. The pink and purple liquid was swirling of its own accord. Harry frowned. He wasn't sure how keen he was on drinking anything that Trelawney had cooked up. He'd sooner drink a potion from Snape… the man may be a colossal git, but he knew his potions. Harry wasn't sure Trelawney knew her left hand from her right most days.

"Now drink the potion, drink all of it, and gaze into the crystal ball," Trelawney gestured expansively at the ball in the center of his and Ron's little round table.

Harry winced, braced, and brought the cup to his lips. With a cringe, he tipped it back.

To his amazement, it didn't taste as horrid as he'd expected. Kind of fruity, with a zing that tap-danced on his tongue and somersaulted wildly down his throat. He swallowed again and the tingles hit his stomach. From there, his chest, then his limbs, until he was feeling quite bubbly from the inside out. He wondered what was in the potion, and if perhaps Trelawney wasn't set on getting the whole class piss drunk. He felt tipsy enough to call it drunk.

He drained the last of the dregs from the cup and put it down. Or maybe dropped it, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that the cup disappeared when he no longer had need of it. The room was shifting, tilting just a little to the right, and Trelawney was floating strangely in front of his eyes like a fun house mirror's wavering image. "_Your baaaaalll, Haaaaarrryyyy_," she said in a smoky voice, a voice that started on her lips but ended in the rafters, and with a monumental effort Harry looked down. The smooth surface of the sphere shone gold from the reflected candlelight and white from the snow-filled classroom window. Maybe if he got a bit closer he could make out the snowflakes.

Harry sank closer, stared hard at the surface. Within the globe, amber mist swirled lazily. Pretty, really. He pressed closer, so close he was sure he'd bump his nose against the curved surface. That'd be a good laugh. Such pretty swirling browns. Swirling nearly as much as his thoughts… but then his mind was slipping. Falling away. He lost focus, lost purpose… 'oh…' he thought. He knew this. It was the meditative state, that calm place in his head where he'd gone a hundred times before on his journey toward becoming an animagus. Nature talked to him there. Things were so quiet when he was in that state, when he wasn't thinking, only being. Things became clear and simple. Like how simply pretty those swirling brown wisps of smoke were.

The amber churned lazily, like a fog slow to lift, as slow and intransigent against moving as his thoughts.

The amber roiled to gold. Then back to amber. Then brown. It pressed close to him and swallowed him in gossamer-soft jaws. Swept up and over him like an ocean wave, only without the wet. It wrapped around his neck and slipped past his cheeks in a tingly kiss.

Then it stilled. Like an _immobulus_ spell had been cast, everything just stopped. The brown smoke held suspended all around him, and he paused with it. Waiting. For what, who knew? But everything waited for it.

Slowly, the smoke moved. It began to thin. Then Harry heard something. A voice. Not speaking, yet still… far away, a sound. Humming. A woman. She was humming, and it was sending away the clouds.

The mist thinned and Harry could just make out the shape of a human form behind the veil of whispering brown. The sound of her voice drew him nearer. '_Believe I'm yours, and that you're mine, Give our magic time'_. She didn't sing the words, but he heard them anyway. He knew that song, had heard it maybe at the Yule Ball, or maybe on Kimmy's wizard radio. He didn't remember any words until he heard them now. He knew the notes, though he need only follow the woman's humming. The mist, it seemed, sang for her.

But even the words faded as the last tendrils of fog slipped away to the edges of his vision. Harry turned his gaze toward the woman, the siren of the smoke. Slowly, slowly, she came into focus.

She was standing in a room. The lights were dim. It looked like a living room; there was a couch, and a rug in front of a stone fireplace. Beyond that shadows claimed the rest, but even still it _felt_ homey. Comfy.

The woman was standing with her back to him. No… not standing, swaying. Swaying to her unvoiced song, dancing slowly to her own music. Brown hair fell past her shoulders, swayed at the ends with her body as she rocked on her feet, to and fro, as unhurried and untroubled as time itself.

After a lifetime she came around, turned as her tune led her, gentle as a lover, and Harry felt recognition snare him. Oh, he knew her. It was _Hermione_. She looked different. Older. Peaceful. There was no book in sight, no fevered hunt for knowledge etched in the lines of her face, no pressure or stress tightening the muscles in her back. She was purely at ease. Swaying. And humming.

And she was not as alone in the darkened room as he'd first thought. Once she'd turned, Harry saw, cradled tenderly against her shoulder, a newborn baby. Hermione rocked it gently, hummed to it in a honeyed voice, her head cant to rest her cheek against the infant's wispy black hair. And for a moment, Harry saw her smile, serene and sweet, a beacon in the night.

Then he was reeling, the vision was gone, and Trelawney was in his face, her thick glass lenses magnifying her eyes almost three-fold. All a matter of inches from Harry's face.

"_Ah_!" Harry jerked back from the old bat, hands flailing out and grabbing for some purchase as his mind cart-wheeled. From the yelp to his left he figured he'd hit Ron. A very Draco-like guffaw proved it for him. He heard a dull thump that was mostly likely his book being knocked to the floor by his other hand. But Harry was too busy trying to get his bearings to care about his book (or, sadly, even his friend).

"What the _hell_ was that?!" were his first not-so-elegant words, slurred over a thick tongue that still tickled from the potion.

Draco cackled.

Trelawney pressed closer. "What did you see, my boy? Your future, what did you see?"

Harry blinked at the professor, bewildered. His mind was chanting, like a broken record, '_Hermione, Hermione, Hermione'_ but he gathered his wits quick enough not to say that in front of the entire class, in front of the bloody Slytherins. "Um… uh… Death Eaters. Loads of them."

Trelawney whimpered, took his hand, and patted it. "Oh! I knew that's what you would see. Dreadful, _dreadful_ that you must know your coming days will be so grim. Oh," a tear escaped her, made the size of a beetle by her enormous glasses as it crawled down her cheek, "that's the curse of foresight, Harry. You see now why many fear to experience it. It's so awful, such a dear, doomed boy," she moved away sniffling.

Ron leaned in toward him, "What happened, mate? You were really checked out there for a bit."

Harry shook his head to try and clear the cobwebs. "Not sure. Don't drink that stuff she gives you, I think it must be spiked."

"If you ask me this class could use a good spiking," Ron whispered then hastily straightened before Trelawney could turn back to them and decide Ron would be her next victim.

Harry stared down at the stupid crystal ball on their table. He'd cursed it a thousand times before for being less than worthless, wouldn't even make a decent doorstop. It looked innocuous enough, but Harry couldn't shake the image that had risen from the mist. His future? Could the old nut job know what she was talking about? What if she did? What if what he'd seen…

Harry could not have recalled a single word of the rest of the Divination class if given veritaserum and beset by the Cruciatus curse at the same time. He would not have known it if Snape had traipsed in, thrown himself at Trelawney's feet, and proposed to her in front of the entire class. He was lost in the memory of what he'd seen, and the most terrifying part of all… what did it mean?


	36. Chapter 36

A/N: Here it is, the moment so long awaited by so many of you. I hope it was worth the wait; I had this scene planned from the earliest chapters of this story, and I was uncompromising on how I wanted it to unfold. I hope it meets everyone's expectations. I had more I wanted to write in the A/N, but I've decided to save it for the next chapter so you can get right to reading Chapter Thirty-Six.

* * *

It was very nearly bedtime before Harry, Hermione, and Ron returned to the Gryffindor common room from their latest attempt at practicing wandless magic. It had been as unproductive a lesson as those that came before it, but Harry had hardly been focusing on the quill. Not with Hermione right beside him.

The common room was already empty when they straggled in, all the other students in their dorms if not already in their beds as well. The lights had been lowered but a fire burned steady and warm in the hearth for any wayward Gryffindors. Crookshanks was curled on the rug in front of the flames, half-asleep and purring under his breath. It seemed the chill of the night had been enough to dissuade the cat from a midnight walk-about of the grounds when there was a warm fire to be had.

Ron yawned. "Well… another evening wasted."

Hermione looked sharply at Ron. "You're not thinking of going to bed; you have homework that needs to be done. I'll bet you haven't even started on your assignment for McGonagall."

Ron scowled, which was telling as to the state of his Transfiguration homework. "Oh, later, I'm knackered. You coming with, Harry?"

And have Hermione's wrath turned on him? He had more sense than that. "No, I'll try and get some work done before turning in." He questioned how much sleep he'd manage if he went up to bed, anyway.

"Suit yourself. I'd rather do with a good sleep, personally. Good night." With that, Ron trudged up the stairs and left Harry and Hermione alone in the common room. A day ago that would not have been discomfiting, but tonight Harry felt tense.

Hermione turned away from Ron's exit with a roll of her eyes. "I know he's thinking he'll copy off me in the morning, but I won't do it this time," her expression changed, as though the irritant which was Ron's procrastination was put out of mind. "Come on, Harry. Let's get started. We may even be able to finish in only an hour if we work hard at it."

Harry nodded mutely and followed Hermione toward the fire. She dropped her bag to the floor and lowered herself to the rug beside Crookshanks. The cat opened his eyes fractionally at the new company. Hermione petted her familiar a moment while Harry sat down on the couch a short distance away.

He was staring at her, he knew he was. He couldn't seem to help it. He'd thought far too long on what had happened in Divination. The more he thought, the deeper he seemed to fall into a sinking well. And he feared, he _knew_, he wouldn't escape it without facing the demons in the dark waters. The same ones he'd eluded numerous times in the past. They would find him tonight.

Hermione pulled her book from her bag and opened it on her lap. She took out next parchment and quill, ink bottle and wand for _scourgify_ spells in place of muggle correction liquid. She laid them out before her, just so, then turned to her text. She was so focused, so single-minded and intent, that she was mindless to the fact that Harry had yet to move to mimic her studious actions.

Rather, he was watching her.

Harry had watched her do the same thing a thousand times. It was Hermione, through and through. The crinkle of concentration upon her brow, the slight pinching of her lips, the flick of her eyes as they raced over written words. It was how Harry was accustomed to seeing her, on a mission, with a purpose, set to a task.

But he'd also seen her smile, gentle and untroubled, with a babe in her arms.

Harry's heart was fluttering in his chest, and he feared to think why.

The vision. It had plagued him all day. What did it mean? He'd thought on it long and hard. Trelawney's meaning had been clear, if the old witch could be taken at her word. And this time, he found himself inexplicably drawn to believe that she had known an elusive truth. He was compelled to believe in the thing he'd seen in the crystal ball. According to Trelawney, if he'd seen Hermione in his vision, she was in his future. That really wasn't too surprising. They were best friends; he'd expect her to be there. He'd be worried if she wasn't.

But the baby… why was there a baby?

Harry didn't own up to his own screaming suspicions until lunch hour, and by then it had been enough to kill his appetite. It was terrifyingly simple, so obvious that Harry had been too scared to acknowledge it glaring him in the face. If Hermione was there, in his future, and if she had a baby with her, then it would suggest, were it possible that perhaps he…

'That it was mine,' Harry had concluded with gut-clenching shock. The black-haired infant on Hermione's shoulder had been his. That enormity of that revelation tore at him through Defense Against the Dark Arts and rendered him deaf to Moody's words.

And now he was here, in the quiet of the common room with Hermione, and he couldn't pretend anymore. He couldn't run.

Hermione was reading and Harry watched, his thoughts running it seemed a mile a minute.

He'd faced the facts of his vision, such as they had presented themselves. Hermione was in his future, and… and they had a baby. All that he'd seen, he could not deny that he'd seen it. So there it was, plain and simple.

But beyond that he was flummoxed. A baby… that didn't happen between friends. How did best friends end in babies? Married people had babies, husbands and wives made mothers and fathers…

Harry suddenly stopped breathing. For a second, time seemed to go completely still. Husbands and wives. It couldn't be, but… could the baby, Hermione… could it mean he would _marry_ her? It was almost too mind-boggling to comprehend. _Marry Hermione_? Hermione _his wife_?

Sitting a few feet away, she turned the page of her book and mindlessly tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

Harry stared while his thoughts exploded into overdrive.

But people who got married loved each other. Like his parents had loved each other, like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia loved each other though they could spare none for him. It was part of being married, and Harry didn't _love_ Hermione.

'Do I?' he thought.

He studied her in the firelight as she read her textbook, completely in her element. Even amid the furious concentration it brought a peace to her because she was where she felt most comfortable. The fire painted dancing orange highlights over her face and left the rest to flicker in shifting shadow. Her hair was touched with russet amber as it fell over her shoulder and down her back.

'She's pretty,' Harry had to confess. But he'd known that for a long time, despite what others might say. And what was on the outside was only half of her loveliness. Where she truly shined was in her heart. So kind and brave and steadfast. And her mind. So quick and sharp and discerning. That was just as much a part of how pretty she was as the curls of her hair or the shape of her mouth or the shade of her eyes. That atop her physical looks more than made her pretty.

'No,' Harry amended, 'she's not pretty. She's beautiful.'

Hermione made a face, a quirky scrunch of her nose, and scratched the bridge of her nose with one finger. Then she brushed away the errant hair that had tickled her.

'So she's beautiful, my beautiful best friend,' Harry thought, 'but that doesn't mean I love her.' But what did? He preferred her company to anyone's, even Ron's, that much was true. He honestly treasured her sense of humor, because Hermione didn't let down her guard often to let show that witty side of her. He felt honored, and lucky, that she trusted him enough to share that side of herself with him. He felt more comfortable around her than he did around anyone else. He could be himself, the good and the bad and the very dark and ugly, and it was okay. He was safe and accepted when he was with her. He could be Harry with her and not be worried she'd shun him for what that truly meant. He never regretted time spent with her. Even hours spent not talking, when he was just studying with her, were not wasted. He trusted her before all others. He'd trust her with his life if it came down to it.

But that was true for a lot of friends. So where did the _possibility_ of love come in?

'And what does it look like?' Harry thought at long delay. He could see none of Vernon and Petunia in himself and Hermione, which he'd generally categorize as a good thing. He and Hermione weren't really anything like Molly and Arthur Weasley, either. He had only pictures of his parents, and that wasn't a lot to go on. Maybe he wasn't able to love. Maybe his parents dying, being raised by the Dursleys… maybe he was broken. And if he was, then Hermione shouldn't be with him. She deserved love from an unbroken man, someone who _could_ love. Who knew how, because he didn't.

But still… he could not shake the idea, outlandish as it was. The idea of maybe loving Hermione. He knew he cared a great deal for her, maybe even loved her as a friend. He might believe he was capable of that.

Hermione sighed, an exhale through her nose, the only concession to being tired she'd permit while she still had homework to do. It was simple and meaningless, but Harry's chest tightened all the same.

There were those things he couldn't place, moments and feelings that would not rest. When he touched her, there was a squirming in his stomach, a speeding of his heart, a tightness in his lungs… that didn't happen with Ron. Her skin was soft; he liked touching it. He liked even more that she let him. And when she touched him back, when she'd curl her arm around his or tangle her fingers with his… for a second Harry couldn't breathe, couldn't really think straight. His whole body stirred when she was with him, like he was more alive than he ever thought he could be. She made life before her touch gray and drab. There were those embarrassing 'physiological responses' he had to her if they were too close, if he glanced upon skin that she usually covered with clothing… that was not fit for friends, but Hermione had explained that. He was a teenage boy, and his body did things. But did that explain the dreams? And did it explain why it felt so good, even when it ached? Did it explain why even the thought was quickening in his blood, wakening in the pit of his stomach and inching perilously lower?

Hermione reached for her parchment and used one side of her book as a desk as she began to write.

She smelled good. He'd always noticed that. Like maple leaves and peaches, soft and comforting as a summer afternoon. And he'd come to really like the way her hair tickled his face when she tucked up against his shoulder. Actually, he really liked when she tucked against his shoulder, tickling hair aside. He always thought of how he'd like to keep her there just a little longer. Sometimes he thought it would be nice to wrap his arms around her and draw her closer, hold her to him until she melted against him, hopelessly tangled and entwined. And when that impulse snared him, for a just a moment, he'd remember, like an illegal indulgence, the way she tasted. And sometimes, _sometimes_, he'd want to taste her lips again.

And it hit Harry, like an _obliviate_ curse in reverse, 'maybe _that's_ love'.

Harry was floored.

Could it be so simple?

He sat and watched Hermione and let the unvoiced question consume him. If all that he felt around her was really love, then what did it mean? For him and for them. The vision, Hermione, the baby, _married_, _his wife_… could he love her like that? Could he take her to be with him, at his side, central in his world, for the rest of his life? Could he love her like a husband would? Like his father had loved his mother?

Merlin, but he thought he could.

Hermione looked up just then, craned her neck to work out the kinks, and then her eyes fell on him. She stopped. "Harry? You okay? You look a bit peaky."

'I think I love you,' he thought in immense wonder, astounded by the realization. What he said was, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Harry's mouth felt unaccountably dry. "Have you ever… have you ever wondered if you'd get married someday?"

Hermione blinked. He'd surprised her. He couldn't blame her for not expecting that question. For all the things they'd talked about, somehow husbands, wives, and children had never come up. Maybe they'd unconsciously avoided them, cognizant of the landmines those topics were.

When Hermione collected herself the surprise left her face and something else took its place… something… avoidant.

She looked down and for a moment worried the edge of her page. It seemed with reluctance that she answered after a silence, "No."

"Really?" Somehow, he was sure she had. She was from a normal, adjusted family, and she was so worthy of a love that strong. Why shouldn't she ever think about it?

Hermione shifted uncomfortably and for a second looked away. Her expression was taut, strained… on the verge of wounded. 'What, why?' Harry wondered in dismay.

"Mione?" he asked softly.

Hermione flinched then closed her book. It was that touchy a subject, it would seem. "Well, I suppose technically that's not entirely true. I've thought of it, yes… I guess what I mean is that I know I'll never get married."

Harry frowned, confused. "Why not?"

Hermione ducked her head and Harry could feel her hurting. What was wrong? Had _he_ hurt her? A curse upon him if he had. His heart racing, he slid off the couch to sit on the rug across from her. She noticed him move, pretended she didn't for a time, then she glanced up at him. In her eyes, in those eyes he liked so much… pain.

"I'm not stupid, Harry." When she saw the querulous look on his face she sighed wearily. "I'm bossy, and stubborn, a stuffy know-it-all bookworm. And I know I'm not much to look at. Who'd want to marry that?" Hermione glanced away from his face, as though ashamed. She tried to dismiss it with a half-shrug. "I accepted a long time ago that no one would have me."

"_I'd_ have you," Harry replied before he could think, before he could stop himself. His heart slammed upward, lodged firmly in his throat, and his stomach was doing flips.

Hermione's eyes shot back to him and locked on his, wide and shocked. She stared at him, agape. Harry was sure he'd lose consciousness for how fast his heart was racing. His hands were shaky. Part of him wanted to jump up and run. But he stayed, and he looked at her. He didn't know what to do.

Slowly, Hermione's expression went from shocked to baffled, then wary, then… could it really be hopeful? She took a deep breath, she seemed as nervous as he, then she licked her lips. Harry's eyes were drawn to the momentary glimpse of her peeking tongue. His blood hummed louder in his ears.

"You… you would?" she asked in a small, quiet voice.

Harry tried to answer, he opened his mouth to speak, but the words were stuck somewhere in his chest. He couldn't get them out for the life of him. He tried again but it was no use. He could not speak.

Hermione, sitting so very near to him, watched him struggle. As he opened and closed his mouth, her eyes dropped to his lips.

And Harry lost all reason. He took a leap of faith, a Godric-worthy act of courage. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.

And she didn't pull away. She whimpered in surprise, but she didn't pull away. And she felt so wonderful against his mouth. Soft, and warm, and gentle. Hermione.

When his bravery flagged and he started to draw back she followed him, keeping her lips locked on his. She rose to her knees to stay with him as he moved. Her fingertips traced over his cheek and he shivered. As he sat back Hermione shuffled closer to him, danced her fingers around his throat to the nape of his neck. Somehow, at some point, his hands found their way to her waist. Time was outside their realm.

Tentatively, Harry parted his lips against her mouth. Uncertain but daring to hope, he touched his tongue to her lips. Her mouth opened and her tongue ventured forth to rake against his.

Then they broke apart. Harry was breathing heavily, his thoughts a dizzying whirlwind. Hermione was nearly straddling him, leaning on her knees into him. His hands were still holding on to her waist. Hermione's hands were wrapped behind his neck. She was looking deeply into his eyes. They were glittering in the firelight, radiant and mysterious. Harry was high on the taste of her, the feel of her, the play of her fingers at the back of his neck, sending goose bumps racing all over his body.

He looked up at her, bathed in her, sat drunk in her presence. He had to clear his throat twice before he could talk. "Did you… did you mean to do that?" he asked lamely.

Hermione smiled. He had his answer then. That smile, that Hermione smile… he knew it for a yes. He'd never soared so high without a broom.

Hermione cocked her head, so painfully sweet and adorable that he physically ached, and she said breathlessly, "I meant to do it… did you?"

Harry smiled in return. "Yeah… yeah, I did."

Hermione bent down, she kissed him first this time, and Harry knew then. His answer so long sought came to him on a kiss. He did love her. This was love. He loved Hermione Granger.

Their lips parted and Hermione slowly sat back. Harry's hand fell away from her hips when she went and her hands about his neck slipped away. The room was colder for the change. Hermione was pink in the face, her eyes unfathomably dark and bright. Harry wanted to reach out again, he wanted to feel her again, but he sensed he should wait. Hermione was thinking. She needed to do that. He'd spent the entire day doing it, after all.

After a time staring at her knees, brow knit in concerted thought, she looked up at him. "Harry, are we… does this mean we're… together now?"

The very notion made his skin tingle, every inch of it. "Yeah, I think so. If you want to be."

That brilliant smile flashed again. "Oh, Harry! I lo—I'd love to!" She leapt up to her feet and Harry followed suit, propelled by her momentum. She was buzzing with energy, Hermione in high gear. She was fit to burst with the desire to pace, he could tell, but she held still to look into his face.

"Merlin, I… I can't believe it. You're my _boyfriend_!" From the expression that passed over her face, one of staggered awe, it seemed just as monumental to her as it did to him. But he liked the sound of it.

He wanted to touch her again. "Does that mean I can get a hug?" he asked hopefully.

Hermione laughed and threw her arms around him. She squeezed so tight that Harry's ribs ached but he wouldn't dream of telling her to stop. He wrapped his arms around her nearly as tight, and he thought 'I never want this moment to end'. She felt so good in his arms, so _right_. How had he not understood before? How had he not seen what was right in front of him? It didn't matter now. He knew now, and she was in his arms.

After an eternity embracing but for far too short a time for Harry's liking, Hermione let go and stepped away. She was still flustered, but happily so. She tucked her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat much as he had earlier. "I… this… we ought to… I mean, I think we should probably turn in for the night."

Harry's eyebrows rose slightly.

Hermione blushed and pushed at his chest for his suggestive interpretation… but she didn't draw back as far when she lowered her hand. "Ron will be expecting you to come up to the boys' dorm soon, and… Harry, we shouldn't… we have to tell him first. After all the fighting when it was just a rumor… we owe it to Ron to tell him before he catches us snogging."

As that implied future snogging, Harry would do just about anything she asked. Including coming clean with Ron first thing in the morning. But potential kissing aside, Hermione had the right of it. Ron deserved to hear it from them. "Yeah, you're right. He should know."

Hermione nodded and quickly gathered her things. She stuffed her homework haphazardly back into her bag, unfinished assignment quite forgotten. "We'll tell him together, might make it easier. I'm sure he'll understand…" she paused before heading toward the girls' dorm, turned haltingly back to Harry, then seemed to make a decision as she stepped quickly into him and placed a shy kiss on his cheek. Harry felt it tingle all the way down to his toes.

With a tiny smile she turned and hurried up to the stairs to the girls' dorm.

Harry watched her go then, at a leisurely pace, as though in a daze, gathered up his things and scaled the stairs to his own waiting bed.


	37. Chapter 37

A/N: For another dash of perspective from the author's POV, this chapter begins on page 272 of my writing program.

And just to share my absolute elation with this story right now: I am in the middle of writing the climax scene with Voldemort!

* * *

Hermione barely slept that night. She feared that if she slept, she might wake to find it all a dream. For hours she lay in bed, quelling a fluttering in her chest that would rise unexpectedly at random moments and dash around her ribcage as uncoordinated as Pig flying about her parents' library. It felt as though it wreaked nearly as much havoc. When it surged through her she clutched her pillow and tried very hard not to squeal like most of the other girls in the room would have under similar circumstances. Hermione Granger did not 'squeal', but for the first time in her life she really, _really_ wanted to.

Harry had kissed her. He'd knelt before her in the firelight, and they'd been talking like they'd done countless times at her parents' house, and then he'd leaned in and kissed her.

She could scarcely keep it right in her head, even when it was as clear as though seen in a pensieve. Her heart came into play, and it clouded the mind she usually relied on unerringly. She was rattled by the way he'd pressed his lips to hers, the way his hands had gone to her waist, the way he'd smiled at her. And the things he'd said. He wanted to be with her. Harry Potter wanted to be with her, in a _relationship_.

She closed a fist around the corner of her pillow so tight it left creases when she opened her fingers.

She wasn't stupid. She'd known since third year that she felt things for Harry that weren't strictly friendship-based. She never meant to, and it was disgustingly humiliating to realize she had a crush on her best friend, but she did all the same. But she kept it in perspective. She was good at that, level-headed Hermione.

Because Harry cared for her, she knew that, but more as a sister than a possible girlfriend. And she was grateful to have that much of his affection. All her life she'd had her parents, Grandmum Berti, a few favorite teachers, but among her peers she'd always been alone. Then she came to Hogwarts, and Ron and Harry saved her from a troll in the girls' loo, and things changed forever. For the first time, she knew what it was like to have friends, people her own age to laugh with.

They weren't a prefect trio, not by far. Ron had a nasty tendency to say things without thinking, and half of them hurtful. He wasn't a bad bloke, by any means, but he was impulsive and hotheaded at times. Hermione discovered just how bad she was at relating to other children. She talked like an adult, acted like someone thrice her age, and she realized just how defensive she'd trained herself to be when she was dealing with peers. She used her books as a shield. And Harry… he was so quiet and intense, tentative and unsure. He _looked_ like he was just searching for a place to belong. His upbringing made him shy, but even still he had such a sense of honor, a valor that even Draco Malfoy hadn't been able to erase right from the start when he stole Neville's remembrall and Harry stood up to him.

That was how it started, the three misfits as Hagrid was so fond to call them. But they'd become tried and true friends. Hermione got used to Ron's teasing, because with _him_ he actually didn't mean it. Everyone else in her life had. She stopped playing the stuck-up valedictorian shoo-in, too good for friends, and let herself be a kid around them. In doing so, she realized she could trust other kids as much as she did adults, sometimes more. And Harry opened up, and proved to be the fiercest, most loyal friend one could ever hope to have. There was not a question that Harry would walk into the hands of Voldemort himself for his friends.

Hermione cared for both her friends dearly, the pair who'd put up with her long enough to look past the rough exterior and bushy hair. Things had been perfect.

And then third year her feelings for Harry changed. The brotherly affection she bore toward him wasn't quite the same as it was toward Ron anymore. Harry, the gentle, valiant, wild-haired boy in glasses. She'd gone and developed a crush on Harry.

But Harry never noticed, and he certainly never showed any indication he might return her feelings. Nor had Hermione expected _that_ to ever happen. She was plain, boring Hermione Granger, and Harry had his own chapter in half the wizard books in publication. He tended to shrug those off and wince a little if he reacted at all, but it didn't change the fact that he was someone, and she was nobody.

So it was his friendship she treasured, and of her stronger feelings she said nothing. It kept things the same between the three of them, and that would serve. Hermione became an expert at pushing away those feelings. She dare not let them jeopardize her friendship with Harry or Ron.

Then last year Harry was mooning over Cho Chang. It stung a little, but by then Hermione had guarded against that inevitability. And it proved her right that Harry could never feel more than friendship toward her. Cho was beautiful, and popular, and a fellow Quidditch player aside. Hermione didn't have jet black shiny hair, she didn't have the school's collective adoration, and she couldn't fly a broom to save her life. And that was obviously Harry's type.

The unexpected part was Ron… he started acting like _he_ might have a thing for Hermione. She'd been taken off guard, and a little awkward about it at first, but she thought maybe Ron would be the best she'd ever do. He cared about her, and she did love him in a way. She admired his almost dog-like devotion to Harry, and he could be a good laugh. He'd tried to hex Draco that one time for calling her a mudblood (even if he'd been the one to end up burping up slugs, it was the thought that counted). She knew she might as well forget about ever being involved with Harry, so there was no point in holding out hope. It seemed like fate in a sense. She could do loads worse than Ron.

But it never felt right. She tried to be open to the possibility of dating Ron, but he just made her so angry sometimes. He needled and heckled until she just lost her cool and either yelled or worse, cried. And whether he meant to or not, Harry was always there to cheer her up afterwards. It was its own death stroke. She couldn't fake a love for Ron that wasn't real, not real in the way Ron wanted it to be.

There was also Viktor Krum who walked into the scene of her social life fourth year, and at first Hermione didn't rightly know what to do with him. She'd never figured on a Bulgarian. She'd had a good time with him at the ball, and he was nice enough, but it never went anywhere. Maybe it was the language barrier; Viktor's English was spotty at best and Hermione was so in love with words (albeit mostly written). Or maybe Hermione was too intent on Harry and his trials during the tournament to really pay another person the proper attention. She would admit that Harry had been her overriding concern the entire year, to the apparent detriment of her social life. Viktor had passed through her world, been her first date and maybe even a fleeting crush for a brief moment, but he'd seemed to have faded back out as effortlessly as he'd arrived. Hermione hated to admit it, but she was just as fine to have him in her past. There wasn't a future with Viktor Krum.

So she accepted the mantle of spinsterhood at the young age of fourteen. And it wasn't so bad. She'd have plenty of time for her studies, and a career, and if she never fell in love she'd never be hurt by it, either. There was something to be said for that. Fortress Hermione Granger, who had friends but not boyfriends, love but not _that_ kind of love.

And then the third task of the Triwizard Tournament put all her carefully constructed walls to ruin, proved her cinder blocks to be made of fine sand. Seeing Harry, bleeding and crying, clutching the body of Cedric Diggory… it scared her to death. How near had that come to being Harry's lifeless body on the ground? How close had she come to losing him?

Too close, too near, and she caved. She went to Harry, intent only on comforting him, but when he'd started kissing her, and touching her… she'd let him. She let herself want him to.

But even then, even as he made love to her, she knew it meant something different to her than it did to Harry. He'd been tortured, he'd seen a friend murdered, he'd faced the very demon who killed his parents thirteen years past. He'd needed a touchstone outside the pain, a point of juxtaposition to cast light upon the dark, something to counter the horror. Love and life to face down the shadow of death. And if Hermione could provide that, she would do so gladly, without hesitation. His friendship alone was worth that and more.

If it reawakened feelings for him she'd worked so hard to bury, so be it. She could suppress them again as she had once before, for the love of Harry. And maybe that was part of what helped see Harry through that night, a love stronger than even he knew.

And then they were Harry Potter and Hermione Granger again, the same old friends since first year, and if Harry was kinder to her then it was just his sense of gratitude for what she'd done. Because he wasn't the type to thank her with words, he'd show it with his behavior toward her. Harry had always been knightly in actions while common with words. It was one of the quirks about him Hermione found endearing.

But then he'd kissed her. Without the trauma of a near-death experience for an excuse. She could still feel the electricity of his touch on her mouth. He'd kissed her and told her he wanted to be with her. Be with her in the sense she'd long wanted to be with him. It seemed too incredible to be real, but she was going out with Harry Potter.

And then that wild clamoring in her chest that brought her to the brink of squealing like a girl.

She slipped into a fitful doze some time well after midnight, but still she was up before the dawn. For once, it had not been dreams of grasslands, golden yellow stalks parting at the point of her muzzle, or her racing the blazing sun over the savannah that woke her out of breath. It was the memory of Harry kissing her in front of the fire, a memory that would not fade even as she slept, that woke her in time to see the light in the room lift from black to gray-blue.

Crookshanks jumped up on her bed to wake her, as he did every morning before he went and roused Harry so the two might meet for their morning run, and he seemed surprised to find her with her eyes already open. Hermione gave the cat a quick pet and quickly got out of bed. Crookshanks watched her a moment, perhaps a bit baffled at the change in routine, then turned and padded out of the room, no doubt to similarly jump on to Harry's bed. Would the cat find Harry similarly sleepless? Hermione wondered.

Hermione dressed quickly in her exercise clothes by the early dawn light. She could barely stand waiting to see Harry again. There was a seed of doubt (Merlin, what if she _had_ dreamed it?), and there was also a healthy dose of uncertainty. How was she to act around him now that she was his girlfriend? Should she kiss him when she met him downstairs? No, that sounded a bit… sappy. What about a hug? What would he expect? _Would_ he expect anything? Harry knew as much as she did about relationships, if not less, which was really depressing if one thought about it too long.

Fully dressed and with trainers laced up, Hermione started down the steps to the common room and hoped the right thing just occurred to her when the moment presented itself.

Harry was downstairs already waiting for her. He was leaning against the back of the couch, Crookshanks beside him and enjoying a scratch. Hermione paused at the sight of him. No different than he'd looked a hundred mornings in the past, but it stole her breath a moment. He was so relaxed. No one would know to look at him now, as she did, that he'd seen so many dreadful things in his young life. He looked like he had not a care in the world beyond this run. It made him unspeakably handsome in her eyes.

She could admit that now, the taboo was lifted.

Harry looked up just then, his eyes landed on her, and Hermione's brilliant plan of letting the moment provide inspiration failed because she couldn't think of a thing to do. Unless stomach fluttering and heart pounding counted.

At least Harry looked just as lost. They stared at each other across the room a minute, as though trying to gauge from the other what their next move should be.

Then Harry smiled, timid and cautious, but beautiful all the same. It freed Hermione from her spot.

Hermione took the last three steps and walked quickly to him, a smile on her face to match his. Harry stood to meet her. When she stopped in front of him she had to look up to meet his eyes. He'd grown a good deal taller than her in the last year. On the topic, broader and stronger, too. She let herself notice it now.

Harry clearly searched for something to say but came up empty. Hermione chewed on her bottom lip lightly with her front teeth.

In the end, Harry's smile turned into more of a smirk for their ungainly dance, and he reached down and took her hand. Hermione beamed at him and they left for their run side by side.

* * *

Harry had had butterflies in his stomach all morning. Even as the jaguar they'd been there. From the moment he woke up, which was well before Crookshanks sniffed at his chin, he'd felt the fluttering in the pit of his gut. But it was giddy, happy fluttering. He didn't often have those.

Hermione had put them there. When he was around her he felt like grinning like a right idiot. At the thought he glanced over at Hermione, walking at his side on the way to the Great Hall for breakfast. She had a tiny little smile on her face, the kind she wore (though she didn't know she did) when she was reading a happy part in a book. They were holding hands, natural as breathing. Harry relented to his impulse, for a second, and grinned like a Cheshire cat. Was there such a thing as a Cheshire panther?

Admitting to himself that he had feelings for her beyond mere friendship had been one of the more eye-opening experiences of his entire life. Finding out he was a wizard was the only competing revelation for shock factor. The prospect of confessing those feelings to Hermione had been terrifying… almost as scary as it had been to admit them to himself. He wasn't even certain he meant to spill the Bottz beans to her so soon after figuring it all out himself; it had just kind of tumbled out of him when Hermione said she never thought anyone would have her. Anyone would be _lucky_ to, but she didn't see that at all. It made him react, knee-jerk-like. Enter the unplanned unloading of his new understanding about his feelings. It could well have become a prize-winning Harry Potter blunder.

But it hadn't turned out that way. In fact, it became one of his smarter moves.

To discover that Hermione felt the same way about him… He was still dopey with the kiss they'd shared last night. First his naked leap into the air, the taking of the chance with what he felt, then her leap right after him. And it was a sweet, sweet fall.

Now she was his girlfriend. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he should do with her in her new role. He hoped to get more of those toe-curling kisses of course, but outside of that he wasn't sure how he was supposed to treat her. She was still Hermione. In the end, he decided the best option would be to treat her as he always did. She seemed to have found that fanciable enough before. When she wanted something more, or different, he trusted she'd tell him. He'd taken her hand in absence of anything to say when she first came downstairs, and she'd seemed to like that, so he did that again when they started down to breakfast. They would probably stay finger-locked all the way to the Great Hall, which was fine with him. He thought he might try putting his arm around her at breakfast… just for a little while, to see if she liked that, too.

Or maybe not. That was pretty big, and he didn't want to upset her. And in front of the whole school, too… potentially humiliating. Perhaps best try that one out in a setting a bit more private. Maybe he should ask if she'd like that before he went and did it. Not knowing was terribly frustrating. Even the jaguar deep inside him, always confident and decisive, seemed to be pacing with ears back and tail low to the ground.

They were near the Great Hall, they could hear the din of voices from within, and it jarred Harry back to the task they'd set for the morning. 'On second thought,' Harry thought to himself with a sinking sensation taking hold of him, 'best wait on any of that until this business with Ron is finished.' He was not looking forward to this confrontation. Not one bit.

Hermione took her hand out of his before they came around the entrance of the Great Hall. He could see her take a steeling breath and draw back her shoulders. Seemed she was looking forward to the having out no more than he. The butterflies were in his stomach still, but they were of a different kind.

He knew this thing with Ron could go badly. He'd been in a tizzy about Harry and Hermione's non-existent relationship half the time since they'd come back from summer holiday. He wasn't sure how the redhead would take the news that it had finally happened, perhaps fair to say his worst nightmare (though Harry would hope Voldemort and an acromantula would nudge in at the top of the list before him and Hermione snogging). Ron had feelings for Hermione, that much Harry knew. 'But that's too bad, she's with me,' Harry thought resolutely, bristling at the insinuation that Ron would fashion himself competition. And Harry knew he would if their fellow Gryffindor had half a say in it. Ron fancied Hermione. He had for some time. And Harry really believed that he'd never liked that much.

It rankled Harry's nerves that he felt cause to get edgy about telling Ron in the first place. For that even the jaguar could stop its fretful pacing long enough to snarl. Ron had no right to begrudge them being together. Ron and Hermione had never been an item; Harry didn't steal anything from Ron, much less someone as strong-willed and opinionated as Hermione.

When they entered the Great Hall Harry saw Ron tucking into his breakfast with customary gusto. He looked to be in a good mood, or as good as his mood got in the morning. Harry hoped it worked to their favor.

Hermione cast a quick look at him and gave a small smile. "Well, best get on with it."

Harry nodded and they headed toward their friend.

Ron looked up when they reached the table. "Mor'ing," he said around a biscuit. Harry and Hermione sat down across from him, customarily side by side. Harry unaccountably found himself watching Ron critically, sizing him up like he might a rival come into his territory. If it came down to a choice between his friendship with Ron and staying with Hermione, he would pick Hermione. That settled cold and unyielding in his chest, and it sobered him well and fully.

It was Hermione who took the plunge. "Ron… could Harry and I talk to you for a minute? It's important."

Ron swallowed and paled a little at Hermione's serious tone. "It's not You Know Who, is it?"

"No, nothing like that."

Ron was visibly relieved. "Well," he took a drink of pumpkin juice, "anything short of that can't be so bad, right? What is it, then?" He bit into a piece of sausage.

Hermione frowned faintly at him. "Could you stop eating a second, please?"

Ron looked up at that. Apparently that was enough to warrant attention to the seriousness of what they had to say to him.

Hermione paused and glanced around at the other Gryffindors at the table. Harry could sense her reluctance to have this conversation in public. Ron could have right tantrums sometimes, and even he couldn't say for certain what Ron would do when he found out.

"Maybe we should go someplace a bit more private," she finally suggested.

Ron now looked wary. "What's going on?"

Hermione looked toward Harry. He looked in turn at Ron. The redhead was watching the pair of them with a suspicious expression on his face. One could practically see the cogs turning in his brain. Then Ron looked over at Harry and his eyes stayed there. Harry looked back at his friend, gaze unwavering. It seemed a show-down of sorts.

Ron would have to deal with this, because Harry wouldn't give Hermione up. Could Ron know that?

Finally Ron set his fork down and turned his eyes back to Hermione. "Is this about you and Harry?"

Hermione tensed. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather take this somewhere else?"

Ron went quiet for a moment. "No. If that's what this is about, might as well out with it."

Hermione didn't seem to like that, but she honored Ron's wishes. "All right then. You're right, it's about me and Harry." She looked again at him and he offered an encouraging nod. He was with her, whatever happened when Ron learned the truth. Hermione took from his support and turned back to Ron. "We've decided to be together… and we wanted you to have it from us up front."

Harry watched Ron closely in the aftermath. At first he just sat there still as stone, as though he'd not heard it. Then he gave a slow nod. He slid his hands off the table and into his lap. He stared down at his half-full plate without uttering a sound.

Hermione ducked her head to try and see his face. "Ron? Are you terribly angry?"

"No," he said, then he looked up at them again. "I'm not angry. I've had my fill of being angry about you two together already."

"But it wasn't true then," Hermione insisted, "we weren't together before last night, just like we told you."

"Yeah, I know. Like you told me." There was an odd undertone to Ron's last words.

Hermione sat back a little. "What does that mean?"

To Harry's amazement, Ron sort of smiled. "Actually, Ginny explained it to me." He brought up a hand and rubbed the back of his head, "Gave me a wallop for being dumb about it, if you want the truth of it. She's a real dragoness, that one."

"What _exactly_ did she explain?" Hermione asked warily. Harry had to confess his own curiosity toward the answer to that question. What could Ginny Weasley have said that made such an impression on her thick-headed brother?

Ron dropped his hand again, his hair the messier for his visual demonstration. "That you and Harry have been together for a while now. For as long as I've accused you two of being together, if not longer."

"But—" Hermione began.

"But you two were the last ones to figure it out," Ron finished. A small, and slightly heartsick, smirk flitted momentarily across his lips. When Hermione had no come-back to that remark, Ron sighed and said, "I really thought about why I was angry at you two. I mean, certain things aside. Short of it is, I thought you were lying to me. But you weren't. You couldn't. You didn't know."

It sounded ludicrous, 'preposterous' as Hermione would be apt to say, but Harry wondered. Could that be true? His feelings for Hermione didn't just appear last night, even he knew enough to know it didn't work that way, so it reasoned that they must have been there for a while. How long had he loved her and not known it? A year? Two? Since first year? Maybe he'd been so cross with Ron earlier in the term because some part of him _had_ known. Put that way, it made a strange sense of its own. Ron had thought to pursue Hermione, but Harry had already sought her affections and hadn't been about to let Ron move in. It was strange to consider, even if it _did_ explain a few things.

Hermione's silence suggested she was just as perplexed by Ron's reply. "_Ginny_ told you this?" she finally asked.

Ron nodded. "Yeah. She's not the only one who knows it, though. Blimey, even Dumbledore knows it."

Hermione's jaw dropped. Harry almost chuckled when the absurdity of that logic, in the sense that it fit _so well_, struck him. There was definitely something to that; Dumbledore had spoken of budding relationships from friend-forged beginnings when they'd been dressed down for their vanishing act at Hogsmeade. He'd spoken of it like it was foregone fact. That should have been a clue to them. Dumbledore was not often wrong about things.

"But I'm glad you told me once you two came around to the truth of it," Ron said, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "It says a lot, you know?"

Hermione shook her head and put aside the strange revelations that had bizarrely enough begun with Ginny Weasley. "You're okay with Harry and me together?" she asked tentatively.

Ron gave a shrug. "Well, I'm not thrilled about it. Now. Maybe someday I will be, because you two ought to be happy, and I really think you can be happy together, you know, without going on like some sodding girl about it. Everybody thinks so. I'll get used to it."

"So… we're all still friends?"

Ron snorted. "Or have another row like before? Not likely. You're bloody right we're still friends."

And Harry relaxed from a tense posture he hadn't known he'd adopted. Hermione sighed in relief and looked at him with a smile. Ron returned to his breakfast as if the business was done with. Hermione and Harry joined him in the meal.

Harry marveled at the morning. He'd not expected Ron to take the news so well. It seemed the last stumbling block to him and Hermione as a couple had turned out to be nothing more than a stepping stone. Behind them now.

Toward the end of breakfast, when students were beginning to leave to prepare for their first class of the day, Harry remembered his earlier notion of putting his arm around Hermione. It would be ridiculously easy, she was sitting right next to him, insanely close were he not her proper boyfriend. It would just be a matter of slipping his arm behind her back and he wouldn't even really need to lean over or anything. But he refrained. The kicker of it was that he realized if he and Hermione hadn't chosen to escalate their relationship into something more, if it was a week ago, he wouldn't have thought anything of just out and touching her. It was just their habit, and he'd known Hermione wouldn't object. Now, when he was her boyfriend, he stopped to think on whether it would be okay.

As the three of them were leaving the Great Hall, Harry snagged Hermione's arm. She stopped and turned to him, as did Ron. Harry looked toward Ron. "Uh… we'll catch you up in a bit."

Ron glanced between them, maybe grimaced just barely, then nodded and walked away.

Hermione looked to Harry curiously for dismissing Ron. Not reproachful, just curious. "What is it?"

"Can I touch you?" he blurted out. Then he wanted to smack himself in the forehead. Real smooth. About as foot-in-mouth as his admission last night that he'd more or less marry her, though that had turned out well enough.

Hermione smiled. "You're touching me now."

Harry looked down at his hand on her arm. He blushed… but he didn't let go. "Ah… what I meant was… well, earlier… I kind of thought about… maybe… putting my arm around you."

Hermione smiled brighter and a touch of pink crept into her cheeks. Harry took courage from it.

"And I wasn't sure you'd want me to. I don't want to make you mad at me, so I thought, well, better ask…"

Hermione very nearly giggled and moved a half-step closer to him. "Harry, I'm your girlfriend. You don't need to ask."

"I don't?"

Hermione shook her head and her eyes flickered, for a second downright flirtatious.

The jaguar liked that. It stopped its nervous pacing right quick. Harry felt brazen and suddenly quite playful. "Well, what if I wanted to do more than put my arm around you?"

"You could do that, too."

"What if there were people around?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Even if there were people around. Within _reason_, of course."

Harry smirked. "What's within reason?"

Hermione thought on it a moment. "Well, nothing where any clothes come off."

Merlin, did she really say that? It suggested other times without people around when clothes _would_ come off. Heat rushed up Harry's neck and dipped below his beltline.

"Oh… well, what if I wanted to kiss you, then?"

Hermione looked up at him, her eyes dark and alluring, a sultry smile just barely tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You can _definitely_ do that."

So he did. In the middle of the hall as students were heading toward their dorms to fetch their books or scuttling off to class, Harry bent down and kissed her. He thought to make it just his lips against hers, but almost at once her tongue raked over the part between his lips and he was really powerless to stop from opening for her. It was almost like a reflex, the same way his hand snatched out so readily at glints of gold. She tasted of pumpkin juice and lemon muffins. He thought he might have a new favorite breakfast treat.

They were target of a few whistles, a few cat-calls from students who were moving around them, but it was the deep-throated "ahem" that broke them apart all too soon. Really, they could only have been kissing for about five seconds. They turned to find Dumbledore in the doorway to the Great Hall looking down at them.

"Seems there is something to be said for the 'hiding away in an alley' approach… tends to be out of the way of traffic," the headmaster said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Sorry, headmaster," Hermione said, her face flush, though whether from embarrassment or their kiss Harry didn't know. He'd like to think it was the kiss. That was certainly why he was feeling so damn cocky, even in the face of Dumbledore. If they didn't high-tail it soon, he might actually grin at the old wizard and his gentle chiding.

Hermione took his hand and hurried them off toward Gryffindor tower, thankfully before Harry smiled right at Dumbledore like the metaphorical cat that ate the canary.

It looked to be a very fine day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.


	38. Chapter 38

The heart of winter settled around the magical school white and brisk. It hung from the outdoor archways in jeweled icicles and tugged at cloaks as students hurried between the many buildings of the school. After classes were done for the day, many students found their way outside to have snowball fights, which for witches and wizards were rather spectacular as _engorgio_ed, _wingardium leviosa_ed, ninja-like stalking snowballs were the order of the day. Clusters of girls could often be found dancing with animated snowmen, the most of which were better dancers than last year's Yule Ball left-footed band of bumbling boys. The massive Christmas trees began to go up in the Great Hall, and many of the stairwells had giant python-like strings of garland wrapped around the handrails… until the garland decided to relocate itself for a spell. Every so often a length of garland would find itself a statue or pillar to coil around, and a teacher would have to pry it down and put it back in a more suitable place. It was winter at Hogwarts inside and out.

The joys of the impending holiday were stained, however, by the inevitability of midterm exams. As it came down to crunch-time, fewer students would be out in the yard playing and instead could be found inside studying. The tests weighed heavily on everyone's mind.

It was a time when Hermione Granger was the shining star of the school, and a time when Harry was immeasurably glad that he ended up with such a wonderful girlfriend. She had them in the library or at the common room table studying every evening working on a different subject. She was rather stern about sticking to a schedule when Harry might otherwise have wandered outside with Ron for a spot of snowball flinging. Just to be able to fill in the gaps in his notes by taking from hers was a huge help. Under her tutelage, he might actually have a chance of getting high marks on his tests.

Ron became far more amenable to Harry and Hermione's relationship when it came to him desperately needing Hermione's help in cramming for the upcoming tests. Perhaps because Ron's acceptance meant a great deal to both Harry and Hermione, Hermione was only too willing to help Ron out, what with him coming around so well to her and Harry's couple status and all. She even kept her scolding at his pithy notes to a minimum. Ron commented on Harry having a good effect on her.

Ron had even gone so far as to use Harry and Hermione's relationship to his advantage. On more than one occasion, when Hermione was studying Arithmancy when Ron desperately needed Hermione's help in another subject and had brushed off his entreaties, Ron would appeal to Harry for help. It hadn't happened too many times, because usually Hermione was willing of her own volition, but she did have her own classes to worry about. That's when Ron turned to Harry. Because it was such a positive validation of being Hermione's boyfriend, Harry typically relented. He would go over to Hermione, maybe slip his arm around her or kiss her on the temple, ask very nicely if she would help him and Ron out for a bit, and it never failed. Hermione would put aside her Arithmancy for a time and turn to helping Ron and Harry with their subjects.

Ron's appreciation of Hermione was less than glowing that particular Monday morning, however. Hermione had had both him and Harry ensconced in the library all weekend working on History of Magic and Potions, the two subjects Ron hated most. That morning alone she'd rushed the both of them through breakfast so they could get in a bit more studying before Potions first period. Ron wasn't daft enough to lay into Hermione for that too much, because he still needed her help, but he did a fair amount of grumbling and mumbling about almost forgetting what their other classmates looked like. Hermione invited him to leave any time he liked, but Ron took piss-poor notes and he knew it. He'd scowl and fidget but bend down to pour over their collective notes, that is to say, Hermione's notes.

They were sitting together in Defense Against the Dark Arts waiting for Moody to arrive. Ron had glommed on to Seamus nearly the moment they arrived, for the simple pleasure of talking to someone who wouldn't quiz him about History of Magic. Hermione was sidled up close to Harry, her textbook open for both of them to read. She was leaning toward him while Harry had one elbow propped on the table, his head perched atop his palm. Hermione was intent on the page, her face furrowed in concentration, her mouth shut tightly. Harry knew it was to stop herself from letting her lips mouth the really important points she was trying to hammer into her brain. Personally, he was catching about every fifth word on the page. It was not really worth the effort to study in the scant minutes between classes in his mind, but that didn't mean he was opposed to having Hermione slide her book over for them to share, or her shifting in close to him, or the chance to steal glances at her when she was too focused on her reading to notice.

Harry reached out discreetly with his free hand, pinched her robe, and gave it a small tug, the whole time watching her face. It was a game of sorts, a cause and effect reaction that Harry had discovered in their plethora of study sessions. Hermione's eyes did not slow in their rate of word consumption, but the furrow on her brow vanished for a moment and her tight lips twitched in a smile. Harry smirked and tugged again. Without looking away from her book, Hermione reached down, took his hand, and physically moved it over to his thigh in an unspoken demand to stop pestering her… only once she'd moved his hand she didn't pull hers back.

"_Harry, Hermione_!" Ron said in an urgent stage-whisper as he turned to them from talking with Seamus. Hermione looked up from her book at that and Harry looked past his girlfriend to notice the expression on Ron's face. Kind of a mix between shocked and worried.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, her tone indicating that she'd noticed the same details of Ron's look.

But before Ron could answer, the classroom door opened and the professor strode in… except it wasn't Moody, it was Snape.

Harry sat up immediately. Hermione jerked her hand from Harry's lap and frowned furiously at the Potions teacher as he marched his way to the front of the classroom. Dead silence had fallen over the students.

Snape turned to the quiet class. Without preamble, he said, "I'm your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher as of now, and will be for an indeterminate amount of time.

"I've no doubt you are sorely lacking in several keys points of Defense Against the Dark Arts. There's hardly time to do anything about your upcoming midterm, but I'll do the part of damage control as best I can. I'm told failing an exam can build character, though were that true most of you would be characters enough from my Potions class. Here's to hoping you're not as lack-witted in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Open your books to chapter thirty-six."

The class seemed divided between two reactions. Half did as they were told, as though on autopilot to obey Snape's bark. The others were looking at Snape, still puzzling over his appearance in their Defense class.

Harry was one of the latter. Hermione's hand shot up.

Snape sighed in exasperated disgust. "Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Professor, where's Professor Moody?"

"That's hardly your concern, now is it? Though I shouldn't be surprised you'd think yourself entitled to an explanation. You're rather _meddlesome_ in that respect, if I recall the whole Remus Lupin incident correctly. If I were you, I'd concentrate on the midterm and keep out of your teachers' business."

Hermione shut her mouth and Harry could see her jaw clenched tightly, angry but wiser than to go toe to toe with Snape over something so trite. Harry didn't feel nearly as acquiescent. He scowled at Snape. The greasy-haired professor glanced at Harry, narrowed his eyes, and without taking his eyes off Harry he picked up a Defense book. Harry leveled an unblinking stare at the teacher, a hunter's stare, riled that Snape would be so rude to Hermione. As far as he was concerned, no one should get away with that.

Snape sneered. "Must I assign you detention from now to the start of Christmas holiday, Mister Potter?"

Hermione elbowed him in the ribs and Harry's fixed stare broke and he looked away. "No, sir."

"Then open your book to chapter thirty-six," with a glance at the book Harry and Hermione had been sharing before the start of class, he added, "your _own_ book."

Hermione quickly pulled her book back into her own spot while Harry withdrew his Defense book from his bag.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was grueling that day, not for the difficulty of the subject matter, but for the intractability of the teacher. A good number of students would leave the lesson with a heightened fear of Snape, as well. Moody knew the Dark Arts so well because he'd been a dark wizard hunter. Snape knew it so well for very different, and very frightening, reasons. Content-wise, lessons from Moody and Snape were very similar, but the flavor of the approach was much blacker with Snape. Neville was liable to have nightmares that night.

When class was over, before Harry or Ron had finished putting away their books, Hermione was up and in a fervor. "Hurry up, you two."

Ron looked about, puzzled. "What for?"

Hermione huffed. "To catch Dumbledore before lunch; don't you want to know why Moody didn't show up for class?"

Harry did want to know. He stuffed his things in his bag and stood.

"Maybe he's just got a touch of the flu," Ron reasoned.

"Honestly," Hermione replied, "Alastor Moody lost a leg and an eye and it didn't stop him hunting down dark wizards. You think the flu would be enough to stop him from teaching a room full of harmless students?"

Whether Ron agreed with their plan or not, he'd habitually gathered his things and moved to go with them anyway. "Hey, we're not all that harmless, you know."

The three of them were walking briskly through the corridors toward the Great Hall, Hermione in the middle. Hermione cast Ron a dubious look at his remark. "I wouldn't say you're particularly intimidating, Ron."

Ron snorted. "I was talking about Harry."

Harry had only been half-listening to their bickering, but at that he blinked. "Huh? Wait, is someone saying I'm dangerous?" Only once he'd said it did he realize it was a dumb question. There were students who'd pegged him as on the cusp of going dark since second year when he talked to a snake.

"Oh, course not, anyone could have escaped You Know Who… _twice_," Ron said sarcastically.

Harry felt weary even remembering that night in the graveyard. Ron didn't notice the effect his words were having on his friend, but Hermione did. She stepped in closer to him and took his hand.

"And that whole window-busting thing you did was pretty scary," Ron said with a twinge of discomfiture indicating just how personally he related to that moment.

"Well, people are morons," Hermione said fiercely.

Harry squeezed her hand in gratitude.

They caught Dumbledore in the hallway on his way toward the Great Hall. When he saw them coming he tried to muster a smile, but there was something grim in his expression that resisted such a merry gesture.

"Headmaster," Hermione said the moment they were upon the old wizard, not even allowing for any kind of cordial greetings, "Moody wasn't in Defense Against the Dark Arts today."

"Yes, I know," Dumbledore said in a low voice.

"And that gi… I mean, Professor Snape wouldn't tell us where he'd gone," Ron added sourly.

Dumbledore sighed. "Well, I might expect you three to be on the trail of that mystery." He glanced around at the other students in the hallway and made a decision. "Come with me, we'll discuss this in my office."

Harry, Hermione, and Ron followed after the headmaster as he made his way back to his tower office. The press of students thinned as they near the headmaster's keep, and their noises all but faded completely as they ascended the spiraling staircase. Once they'd all filed inside the office and Dumbledore shut the door the headmaster pulled out his wand and conjured a small picnic table laden with sandwiches and drinks. "May as well have a bite of lunch," Dumbledore said as he tucked away his wand. "Do sit down."

Ron didn't have to be asked twice. He was already helping himself to a sandwich when Dumbledore sat down with them. Hermione paid the food no mind. "Sir, what's happened to Professor Moody?"

"I wish I knew," Dumbledore answered. "The ministry contacted me on Saturday regarding a… well, let's call it a preventative action against Voldemort." Ron nearly choked on the name and put the rest of his sandwich down. "They requested Alastor's assistance in the operation. He is still a valuable asset where it concerns battling the dark arts and those who wield it. Don't let his position here as a teacher lead you to believe his Auror skills are at all diminished.

"It wasn't really a question of Professor Moody going. We are all doing whatever we can, all that is asked of us, in this renewed threat from an old foe. We anticipated Professor Moody's return before classes resumed on Monday. Obviously, that did not occur."

"What mission was he on?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore hesitated. "It was aimed at one of Voldemort's most influential Death Eaters. The ministry believed they could catch this particular individual in the act of recruiting young wizards from Durmstrang to Voldemort's ranks. If he could have been caught openly aiding the dark wizard, he could have been locked up in Azkaban and his resources no longer at the dark lord's disposal. Right now, with Voldemort staying low to the ground, our most deadly strikes are at those Death Eaters who _can_ work in the open to clear the way for his return to power. A great portion of which is contingent upon him securing a sufficient force of followers to challenge the ministry's might."

"Which Death Eater was it?"

Dumbledore's lips tightened. "I must not say, Harry. There are students here who cannot help who they are related to; they should not be punished for the sins of the father."

"Malfoy," Harry said at once.

"I won't say," Dumbledore said, but Harry was sure.

"Has there been no word from him? Professor Moody?" Hermione asked in genuine concern.

"Alas, no." Dumbledore stroked at his beard. "It's still not clear what happened at Durmstrang. Those who did make it out of the conflagration, and those were few enough, appear to have been _obliviate_d. They're in Saint Mungo's at this moment, but whether anything useful can be recovered from their wiped memories is still unclear. We suspect Moody was taken alive, surely Voldemort would know an Auror could possess useful information."

Harry remembered his nightmare, the Auror he'd seen die at the point of Voldemort's wand.

"And an Auror who had been teaching at Hogwarts only days prior… it would present unique access to… unusual facts."

'Like about me,' Harry thought, his stomach a stone.

Hermione was chewing on her bottom lip in furious thought. "Headmaster… what if that was the whole point? I mean, taking Moody?"

Dumbledore chuckled a little, but it was dry and thin. "At times I think even I do not give you enough credit for how clever you are, Miss Granger. I've wondered the same thing, in retrospect.

"A few of those who went to apprehend the Death Eater in question were found slain, others were found with no memories, and others, like Moody, were simply missing. Moody, clearly, had been taken. But maybe not all of the ministry officials that disappeared did so against their will. Most Death Eaters take the tattoo, the Dark Mark, but Voldemort is wise enough to know that refraining in some instances would be to his advantage.

"It was believed that all of those who went to Durmstrang were proven loyal to our side, but we can't know that for certain."

"A trap for Moody," Harry mused, ill at the thought.

Dumbledore nodded sadly. "There is no proof of that, but in hindsight I have wondered."

Harry thought of the Auror in his dream, on his knees, hands mangled, arms broken, defiant to the last. "Moody won't tell him anything," he said with sudden certainty. Moody would not be an Auror to break, Harry just knew it.

"No, he won't. They come no stronger than Alastor Moody. But that is both good news and bad news."

"When he realizes Moody won't give him what he wants, Voldemort will kill him," Harry provided heavily.

Dumbledore's somber silence was confirmation enough.

"Is anything being done to try and find him?" Hermione asked, voice tight.

"All that can be done, but unfortunately all that can be done may not be nearly enough to save Alastor. We would have to find Voldemort to find Moody, and that is more easily said than done."

"Is there anything _we_ can do?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore looked sharply at Harry. "I don't want you trying to play the hero in this, Harry, it will only play to Voldemort's hand. Is that understood?"

"But, sir…"

Dumbledore placed his hand on Harry's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. "Listen to me, Harry. There are more people than you know doing everything in their power to protect you. You are a symbol to them that this dark wizard can be defeated, for a child did it once. They need that. I implore you, don't besmirch their efforts by doing something rash and getting yourself killed."

Hermione gasped at the bluntness of the headmaster's words… and at the suggestion of Harry dying.

"But they're in danger for _me_!" Harry retorted indignantly.

"And _you_ are a fifth year student in a magic school. I believe the muggle term is 'in over your head', is it not?"

Harry was incensed. How could Dumbledore pull that on him, when he'd confronted Voldemort twice in the flesh, even more if one counted Quirrell his _first year _and Tom Riddle's manifestation in his second?

"You have a gift for combat, Harry, I won't deny that, and I know some day you will be a great force for good in the wizarding world. But that day is not today." Dumbledore suddenly looked his age as he said, "The first time Voldemort terrorized the wizarding world it was eleven years before you stopped him… it may be you will still have to fight him one day. But not now, if I have any strength in me it won't be now."

Harry was struck mute by the passion in Dumbledore's voice. This wasn't Headmaster Dumbledore or even kindly old Albus Dumbledore. This was different. This made Harry's heart constrict and his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. There was a Sirius kind of sound to the headmaster's words.

In a blink it was gone, replaced again by kindly Dumbledore, and he removed his hand from Harry's shoulder and looked forlornly at the sandwiches. "Well, I daresay this talk of Voldemort has spoiled my appetite. Oh well, could do to miss a few meals anyway, my paragliding harness was getting a bit snug. Delightful muggle hobby. And I believe you three have class in ten minutes."

With silent nods the three students left the headmaster's office, sullen for the visit.

* * *

That evening, Harry was on the common room couch making a vain attempt to study. His concentration was thoroughly shattered by the meeting earlier that day with Dumbledore, and nary a word in his textbook was connecting with his brain. It may as well have been written in Elvish for all he was getting from it. Even still, he went through the motions of studying, almost out of somatic memory. Dumbledore wanted him to go about as if things were business as usual, and even though he went through the motions as though the only pressing matters were his upcoming midterms, Harry couldn't make himself commit to that philosophy. Not while knowing that Moody had been taken on his account. It tasted like cowardice to him to sit and do nothing while people _he knew_ were being tortured because of him. 'But say I did mean to do something about it, what could I do?' he thought in frustration. He didn't have any special insight as to Voldemort's whereabouts any more than Dumbledore or the ministry had. It wasn't quite so easy as ringing up Voldemort and saying 'what say we talk about this? Oh, and while you're at it, mind releasing Alastor Moody? Bad form nicking him like that.'

He didn't like it, but Harry was stuck doing just as Dumbledore wished… nothing.

Currently, he was stretched out lengthwise and taking up half the couch. His shoulders were pressed against the armrest, leaving his torso at a shallow angle, and his book was propped on his stomach. He'd kicked off his trainers and the muggle clothes he wore were loose-fitting and cozy. If one didn't know how to read him well, they might think he was rather relaxed. They would have been gravely mistaken.

Ron was in the chair situated at a ninety degree angle to the couch. He had a book open in his lap but his efforts to study seemed just as pointless as Harry's. He'd been staring at the same page for about fifteen minutes. Though it seemed they were the only ones cursed to academic failure that night. A few other Gryffindors had appropriated the common room tables for their own work (which they were actually doing); they'd already been set up when the trio returned from classes for the evening. Hermione had gone to the library to study when she saw them at the tables… to properly study Hermione had to sprawl, and for that only a proper table do. She'd been gone for over an hour.

Harry almost wished he'd gone with her. He wouldn't get any more studying done in the library than he currently was in the common room, but at least Hermione had a reassuring effect on him. She might even have some perspective on this whole Moody business that he'd not considered. He'd learned to turn to her when he was stymied, because she had a knack for seeing things more clearly than he did. She extracted details, hard facts, where he was too balled up in the emotion of the situation. And he'd freely admit that he was pretty emotional about what had happened to Mad-Eye Moody.

"Bollocks," Ron suddenly said. Harry looked over the top of the pages of his book at his friend.

Ron closed his own book and dropped it on the floor in defeat. "I'll not get a lick of that to stick tonight." He ran a hand through his hair and sagged in his chair. He looked as frazzled as Harry felt; Ron just wore it on the outside more than Harry did. Ron turned to Harry and asked, "Well, this night's a bust for studying anyway. What do you say we hit the pitch? A bit of flying might help."

Much as Harry loved to fly, bitter cold weather notwithstanding, a joyride wasn't going to fix this. Though if he was going to waste his time just the same, maybe better he do it on a broom than in front of a book.

He was seconds from agreeing when Hermione joined them, just returned from the library. She stopped at the end of the couch nearest to Harry's feet and pinned Ron with a disapproving, maternal eye. Apparently she'd heard Ron's suggestion about skiving off studying for midterms in favor of flying on broomsticks. Ron noticed Hermione's disposition, too.

But Harry noted that while Hermione looked displeased, she didn't say anything. He had the suspicion she wouldn't, given the circumstances. She'd not breathe a word of reprimand if Ron wanted to go out and fly, nor if Harry chose to join him.

But Ron knew Hermione from a thousand times before when she would have read him the riot act for neglecting his studies, and he acted accordingly. "On second thought, I think I'll just go study in the dorm," he said hastily as he snatched up his book and all but fled the common room. Harry knew Ron would do no such thing as study. He'd be flipping through a Quidditch magazine in record time, or maybe playing exploding snaps with Seamus. The most use his book would see would be as a potential place to set up his wizard's chess board. His lie about doing homework in the dorm was merely an escape from Hermione riding herd on him.

Hermione looked after Ron's retreating back and once he was gone she sighed and dropped her bag to the floor. It landed with a heavy 'thud', speaking to the collection of massive books inside.

She turned to face Harry, still sacked out on the couch with a prop book in hand, and he could see the fatigue in her features. "Studying didn't go well, I take it?" he asked needlessly. He would not have believed it before now, but he knew concentrating on schoolwork had been just as futile for her as for him.

Hermione frowned, vindication enough of his rhetorical question, then she climbed over the armrest and on to the couch. She crawled on hands and knees toward Harry, squeezed between him and the back of the couch, and lay down on her side. Harry scooted over a couple of inches to make room for her, but the couch was hardly made to fit two across, and Hermione was more lying on top of him than next to him. Which was fine. Her head dropped on to his shoulder and her arm draped across his chest; her legs were hopelessly tangled up in his. They'd be a sight getting up off the couch… whenever they did… perhaps sometime around midnight if Harry had his choice. He put his book on the floor, abandoning any pretense of studying, and brought both arms around her. It felt natural now.

Getting used to displays of physical affection had been something of a roadblock for them at fist, and in hindsight it seemed so ridiculous for that to have ever been an issue for them. But for all the physical contact they'd been prone to before, the kind of touching reserved for that between boyfriend and girlfriend was very different. They were used to touching each other in small ways; holding hands, sitting close together, touching the other on the shoulder, even the infrequent hair touches. They discovered it was quite another thing to just wrap one another up in a hug when there were people around to see it. Harry's bold move in the corridor that day they told Ron aside, they found themselves actually rather bashful about the fawning and holding part of being a couple.

Ironically enough, Harry had a pack of Slytherin girls to thank for their breakthrough into really embracing the meaning of boyfriend/girlfriend public displays of affection.

Harry had been in the Great Hall with Hermione toward the tail end of lunch when she got up to fetch a Danish off the rack that had floated to the far end of the long Gryffindor table. Harry hadn't much paid attention to her departing until he caught the unmistakable sound of taunting. And girl-taunting, no less, the ugliest kind. He just had a feeling it was about them. Harry touched the jaguar and listened in… the girls could not possibly know he'd heard every word. A cluster of Slytherin girls, who knew full well Hermione only a few feet away could hear them, started twittering and going on about prudish Hermione Granger. How she'd never have a boy's hand up her skirt because she'd beat them to death with a book as soon as they looked at her. How she'd never even want a bloke anywhere near her knickers because it might untwist the knots she'd worked on so hard for years. How she was faking being with Harry to use him as a shield, because most people seemed to think he was something special and wouldn't think to approach her if they believed Harry would have a problem with it. Because of course miss perfect Hermione Granger would have to pretend to have any interest in boys. They were just beginning to speculate that it might all be a cover so she could secretly have her bookish way with Ginny Weasley when Hermione rejoined him at their table with the Danish that she never touched.

Harry had been furious, but he didn't do anything about it right away. He let it stew inside him, let it fester and build until he was ripe with fury toward those bloody Slytherins. When he acted on his feelings, it was with a flourish worthy of a true Gryffindor. He and Hermione had been on their way to the library one evening to study Potions. The halls were nearly empty, most students already gone to their common rooms, so the sound of the girls' approaching voices carried well. Harry knew them by their twittering tones. Before the posse turned the corner and came face to face with him and Hermione, Harry grabbed Hermione, pushed her up against the wall, buried his face in her neck, and kissed his way past all his misgivings about public affection. Hermione gasped and clutched at his shoulders. Seconds before the Slytherins came around the corner, Harry pushed his hand up under Hermione's skirt and splayed his fingers over her thigh. Needless to say the foul-mouthed girls got quite an eyeful when they came to the juncture between corridors and saw Harry Potter with Hermione Granger pinned to a wall, his hand up her skirt and his face in the crook of her neck, and Hermione clinging to him and biting his neck… which his bold hand movement seemed to have set off.

They had pulled apart and played the act of two caught unawares in a private moment, and it shut the girls up well and good. They scurried off, no doubt to jabber and tongue-wag a different sort of gossip, and Harry had looked at Hermione warily. She was pink in the face, her eyes dark, her breathing heavy, and she knew exactly what he'd done and why. But she hadn't been mad at him. She'd pulled him into a hug for what he'd done for her and somehow it brought down the wall of uncertainty and shyness that had existed between them. Since that day they'd not been reluctant about being physically affectionate.

Sometimes, Harry almost wanted to thank those ruddy Slytherin girls. It was their attempts to hurt Hermione that ultimately gave him moments like these, on the couch in the common room with Hermione cuddled against him.

Hermione sighed into his chest, snuggled closer, and it made some of the badness of the day go away. Harry pressed his cheek to the top of her head. He always liked it when they could be like this. Frequently, he delighted in his position as Hermione's boyfriend. It gave him special rights to her that he found he enjoyed very much. Things like this. It was so liberating to be able to hold her like he wanted to without a care to what others might think. It was worlds different from anything he'd ever known before. It was a snitch in his chest. Hermione showed him a Harry he didn't even know he could be. A Harry that hugged and smiled and loved. He wouldn't have believed it possible but for Hermione.

The fire in the hearth crackled and the wind groaned now and then beyond the shuttered windows. Harry could sense that Hermione wanted to talk about Moody, but there were other ears besides his in the room. For a time it left them speechless in each other's arms to have the one burning topic of conversation off limits.

In their idle silence, Hermione absently moved her hand up to the center of Harry's chest and mindlessly traced patterns over his shirt with her fingers. It felt really good, almost tickled. He let her do it a minute before he stilled her hand with his own. It felt too good, and he'd grown adept at knowing when Hermione could put him into an embarrassing condition. Those other ears in the room were attached to other eyes, too. He'd prefer they not see what Hermione could do to him with just the tips of her fingers.

Luckily, Hermione understood and stopped what she was doing. She looked out for him so diligently, so carefully, in all things great and small, from life and death to saving him a ribbing from his classmates.

The knot that was the day began to unwind and fade away. Harry let his eyelids droop.

"Harry," Hermione said softly.

"Yeah?"

She lay motionless at his side, still mindful of her movements, and it was almost with care that she slipped her arm back around his chest to wrap him in a loose, one-armed hug. "I was planning to owl my parents tomorrow and ask if they'll let you come home with me over the Christmas holiday."

Like a reflex, Harry frowned. He must have tensed just a bit, because Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know if you should do that," Harry said awkwardly, "ask your parents to take me in, that is."

"Why not?" Hermione asked, her tone almost affronted that he'd even question her intentions. He knew she only meant well, but it rang wrong like a misshapen tuning fork. If only he could articulate why to her.

"Don't you think I've imposed on them enough already as it is? They're great and all, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't want to give them a reason to not like me."

"That's nonsense. They were fine with you staying over during the summer holiday." Hermione cocked her head faintly. "You were fine with it then, too, by the way."

"Because I had to go somewhere; Hogwarts isn't open to students during the summer." At once Harry knew it was the wrong thing to say. Hermione looked taken aback… then hurt. She drew back slightly.

Harry wrapped his arms around her tighter to stop her from leaving him. "No, that's not what I meant. I only mean that… I don't want to be a bother to them. Now that you and I are… together… I want them to like me even more than I did before." Harry loosened his hold on her again, testing the waters of her mood in a sense, but Hermione didn't pull away. She stayed, looking down at him, a truly puzzled and disappointed look on her face. Harry found he had to look away. He averted his gaze and said lowly, "I may not know a lot about Christmas, but I know it's a family holiday. Why would they want me there?"

He didn't see what Hermione's expression would have done at that comment, since he was staring at the fire, but he didn't have to look at her to feel her fingers thread through his hair. He was surprised to find it actually made the twinge in his chest hurt worse. Hermione's touch usually made the hurt lessen, but not this time.

He was used to being the orphan, the unwanted underfoot nobody interloping on someone else's happy family Christmas. Years ago he'd detached from its meaning, but Hermione made him feel the serrated edge of that lonely role.

"I can't believe you have to ask that, Harry," came Hermione's thick voice. Warily, he looked back at her face. Her eyes were sparkling in the firelight with moisture. Crap, he'd brought her to the brink of tears. He was just trying to make everything easier on everyone.

"Isn't it enough that I want you there?" Hermione asked.

He wanted it to be. He wished it could be more than anything.

"I couldn't bear to have your parents start thinking of me as a nuisance," he replied. "Not them. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia are all I can stand of that.

"Just… don't ask them to take me in. Please? I'd rather stay here over Christmas holiday and know I'm not ruining their Christmas by being there when they don't honestly want me around. They can't think ill of me that way."

Hermione scowled. "You're being silly, Harry, they wouldn't think that… but if it's important to you, I won't ask them. But I'm not happy about it, make a mental note of that." She pursed her lips and touched her chin to his shoulder, "I'll owl tomorrow and tell them I'm staying here with you, then."

"_No_, that's even worse, Hermione."

"Well, what would you have me do if you'll not come back with me?"

Harry was speechless for a moment that she'd make it so clear-cut. She had every intention of being with him for Christmas, wherever that might end up being. Separating was not a factor in her equations. It balled into a lump in his throat. She wanted to spend Christmas with him.

But if Jake and Miranda Granger would be perturbed to have him intrude on their Christmas, they'd be even more displeased if he took their daughter out of their holiday for the second year in a row. "They'll miss you if you stay here, Hermione. It's Christmas and you have a family; you ought to be with them."

"Well, what if I told you that's why I'd planned on staying with you?" she challenged firmly.

Harry's hands closed around air when what he really wanted to do was cling to her. He could bruise with how strongly he wanted to hold on to her just then. Did she really mean what he thought she meant?

"I… you…" Harry couldn't say it, couldn't ask because what if he was mistaken. As much as he feared to have her say it, he was even more scared to hear her tell him she meant something far less… monumental. Something in him was breaking, or maybe healing for the first time in his life. It all felt the same.

Hermione gave a frustrated sigh. "Oh, fine, Harry… I'll go home, _without_ you, if that's what you really want."

Harry cleared his throat. "I want… I want to do this right."

Hermione's expression cleared a little at that. "Is that what this is?" she asked softly.

Harry wished he knew for certain. "I _think_ so. Maybe."

With that, Hermione snuggled back down against his side; her head reclaimed its place on his shoulder and her arm fell across his body once more. Harry let out a pent-up breath of relief when Hermione didn't up and walk off.

"You know you're not alone anymore, don't you, Harry?" she asked in a near-whisper.

Harry could not have spoken if he tried. When words failed him, he reached over them and pulled the blanket that was draped on the back of the couch over the both of them. He tucked it tenderly around Hermione, then settled down more comfortably on the couch. He'd sleep on the ruddy couch with her all night, and the devil with anyone who didn't like it. Filch could raise all the ruckus he liked, McGonagall could wake them with a bitter scowl and toe tapping against the floor, Snape could bloody come in and take points from Gryffindor until he was blue in the face. Harry considered it all pale to the promise of Hermione sleeping at his side.

Against his chest, Hermione smiled. She understood. She always did. And she did not budge so much as an inch to get off the couch and go up to her comfy bed.


	39. Chapter 39

Their first batch of midterms fell on a frosty, slate gray Wednesday. Mad-Eye Moody never returned to the magical school, but that became old news when the crush of finals swept over the student body. Even Harry, Hermione, and Ron let their focus shift so they might properly attend to their studies. They all sat the Potions, Charms, and Care of Magical Creatures exams. Harry had some reservations about Potions when the exam was over, his end-product had been more teal than the prescribed seaweed green, but he thought he did fairly well in Charms and Care of Magical Creatures.

In the afternoon, Hermione left them to take her Arithmancy midterm, and usually that would have meant Harry and Ron had to pack off to Divination. This time, however, when the class arrived to take the test Professor Trelawney informed them that it was really needless, as she already knew what they would make and saw no reason to actually administer the exam. With that, she dismissed them a mere five minutes into the testing period. Neither Harry nor Ron were about to complain, even if the old bat decided to fail them without truly testing their knowledge. They'd take arbitrary failing grades to escape the test itself. It seemed everyone else was just as content to have Trelawney pick grades out of a hat (or, more likely, a crystal ball) for them, because every student to a person scurried out of the Divination classroom before the professor could change her mind. Not even Parvati complained about being unfairly denied the chance to prove their knowledge on the subject. Ron commented on their way out that if Hermione had still been taking Divination with them, she would _surely_ have said something.

In Harry's mind, that left History of Magic as the only remaining exam that had a real chance to trip him up. He was sure he could muddle through Transfiguration and Astronomy well enough. Maybe it was a hint of arrogance on his part, but he wasn't the least bit worried about Defense Against the Dark Arts… not once it had been announced that Dumbledore would be standing in as proctor for the exam since Snape had other years of Potions classes to oversee at the same time. History of Magic could be a real pisser of a test, though. He still zoned out through half the lectures Binns gave, even on the days that he tried to pay attention.

So it was off to the Great Hall to study for History of Magic for Harry Potter. Ron begged off joining him right away, stating that as long as they had an hour free of Hermione while she was taking her Arithmancy final he was going to get in what relaxation time he could. Because once she was out of her test, she'd be on them to study, study, study.

That was how Harry found himself alone at the table, his History of Magic book out in front of him and his notes spread out like a fan of parchments. There were a fair number of other students at all the tables making use of the space to lay out their study materials. The sound of rustling paper, quills scratching on parchment, and hushed whispers turned the Great Hall into a mockery of a library. The Christmas lights strung on the enormous pine trees that decorated the hall cast colorful, twinkling hues on the textbook as Harry forced himself to reread the chapter on the Great Astrology Farce of 1465. Which was not great. Not even really interesting at all.

Harry didn't realized he'd dozed off, his head pillowed on his open book, until he was wakened. He was comfortable and adrift, far from boring history tomes, when a sudden warm influx of air in his ear startled him from his light slumber. He snapped open his eyes to find Hermione bent close to him, blowing in his ear. When he woke she stopped and smiled. "Do you expect to soak it in that way?" she teased as she put her things on the table and sat down next to him.

Harry smirked and lifted his head, straightening his glasses that had been pushed askew across his nose. "Well, if the ink comes off on my face maybe Ron can read the answers on my cheek. At least someone would benefit."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I heard about what Trelawney did... I can't believe all of you are going to just let her make up grades for you. What if she fails you?"

"Then she saved me having to earn my poor mark," Harry countered with a shrug.

Hermione grunted. "Well, she probably makes them up in any case. I mean, really, how can one grade something as unsubstantiated as Divination?" She dismissed the entire subject with a shake of her head. She glanced down at Harry's book and inched closer, a knowing smile on her face. "Do you want my help?"

Harry smiled crookedly at her. "Can you make the Great Farce interesting?"

"Please," she reached for his notebook, "nothing can do _that_."

Harry's eyes widened. He could hardly believe his ears. "Did you really just call something in History of Magic _boring_?"

Hermione was leaning in front of him to gather up his study material. At his question she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, their faces a bare inch apart, and with a mischievous little smile she ducked in, pecked him on the lips, and said sotto voce, "Don't tell Ron."

Harry beamed.

"Where _is_ Ron anyway? Shouldn't he be studying this, too?"

Harry and Hermione were going over their combined History of Magic notes, which really meant to say they were going over Hermione's notes, when Ron rejoined them. None too happily, either.

Ron dropped on to the bench across the table from Harry and Hermione with a grunt and very nearly slammed his bag on to the table. Hermione, annoyed, looked up to scold him but when she caught sight of him she gasped instead. "_Ron!_"

Harry looked up at Ron. He saw why Hermione had sounded so shocked. Ron was livid, his face red with anger, but not nearly so eye-catching as the bruise that was beginning to color the skin around his left eye.

"What happened to you?" he asked in dismay.

Ron ground his jaw. "_Foul bloody git_," he muttered hotly.

"Who? Was it Malfoy?"

Ron's eyes… or rather, his good one, widened until white showed on all sides of his blue iris. "_No_! Merlin, don't even say that!"

Harry looked to Hermione, but from the small shake her head she was just as baffled as he was. "Ron," she leaned forward toward their friend, "tell us what happened."

"Seamus! That's what happened."

Harry sputtered. "_Seamus Finnegan_ hit you?! Why in the world would he do that?"

"You know," Ron ranted, "I've never liked that Seamus anyway. But you think you _know_ someone… we've been mates for years! There are just things you don't do! Real lousy of him by all accounts. But I'm not done there, no, I blame _her_ just as much as _him_. She's a wildcat, I know that, but it's my _job_ to take her side, you know? Even when she's being _stupid_! _No gratitude_! I should just leave her be, snog his face off for all I care!"

Harry was very confused. Hermione was the voice of reason, as always. "Ron… just slow down and tell us what happened between you and Seamus."

Ron looked up at Hermione, glowered, and turned an ever darker shade of red. "Oh, nothing, no big deal, just walked in on that dirty wanker snogging my sister!"

"_Ginny_?!" Harry yelped. Ginny and Seamus were kissing? Never in a million years had he seen _that_ coming.

Ron took Harry's tone of shock for indignation. "_I know_! What was my little sister _thinking_ going about with the likes of _Finnegan_?" Ron turned matter-of-factly to Harry. "There's only one thing for that, Harry. The pair of us will just have to beat him up."

Harry was still blind-sided by the revelation, but even stunned he didn't think going Death Eater on Seamus was really a sound move. "Uh… Ron… I don't fancy Seamus snogging Ginny much either, but I don't know if that's really the best thing to do." When Ron began to gape at Harry's reluctance to back him Harry added, "Besides, looks as though he's already got you one."

Ron reached up, touched underneath his eye, and winced. "_Oh hell._ That wasn't bloody Seamus, it was my _damn sister_."

Hermione tried to hold it back, she really did, but Harry could hear the ghost of a giggle behind her words when she said, "Ginny popped you?"

"When I told her she'd best get up to her room before I swatted her." He glanced up and saw Hermione holding her hand to her mouth… but still unable to completely mask the smile warring to win over her expression. Ron darkened visibly. "Oh, so that's _funny_, is it?"

"Of course not… I'm sorry, Ron, it's just—"

"Just what? Did you know about this?"

"No!" Hermione said at once.

"Hmph. Bet you did, you girls talk about everything, talk about all us blokes behind our backs."

Hermione's compassionate mood was thinning. "I swear I didn't know they were together, Ron."

Ron snorted cynically, still on his tear. "Kind of hate to think what you must say about Harry when it's just the lot of you birds cackling."

Hermione stiffened furiously.

"That's far enough, Ron," Harry said, "if Hermione says she didn't know, she didn't know." Before it could turn into a row when Ron was really angry with someone else, Harry redirected the conversation. "Where's Ginny now?"

"How should I know? She threw her little fit, gave me a black eye, and made off with that bastard Finnegan. Expect they're in some broom closet snogging their brains out." Ron brightened suddenly. "Fred and George! Brilliant. They'll be up for pounding him good for laying a hand on our baby sister." Without another word, Ron jumped up and ran off to find his older brothers.

Harry watched after Ron, concerned. "Should we try and catch him?"

"And have him mad at us and accuse us of being in on some conspiracy masterminded by Ginny or worse, Seamus? Why bother? By the time he's found Fred and George he'll have calmed down, and if not… well, the twins aren't likely to agree to actually _hurting_ Seamus… though he may be in for a royal pranking."

Harry conceded with an uneasy sense that he should still have gone after Ron. "You _didn't_ know, did you?" he asked carefully.

Hermione looked reproachfully at him. "No, I didn't."

Harry nodded immediately in acceptance of her word. It was good enough for him; it _was_ possible she'd been telling Ron what would be best for him to hear in the temper he was in, truth or not. But if she told him she didn't know, he believed her.

A very sly smirk touched Hermione's face then and Harry looked closely at her. He was getting to the point where he recognized wicked Hermione in the span of a heartbeat. "What?"

Hermione slid her eyes to him and gave a small shrug… accompanied by a slight blush. "It's nothing, really, I just… it occurred to me that what with Ginny and Seamus to twist him into fits, Ron may not even care anymore that _we're_ snogging."

She was probably right about that. In comparison, your little sister snogging someone had to be far more distressing than your two friends snogging. He hoped that turned out to be true. If Ron stopped caring completely about Harry and Hermione kissing maybe they could stop being so eggshell-careful with each other around him.

Harry found he liked that idea very much. He was just about to put his arm around Hermione to give her some idea of how much that notion pleased him when they were interrupted a second time… this time by a bird. An owl alighted on the table right in front of them, causing Hermione to jump and Harry to all of a sudden find the owl mail concept truly irritating.

The little brown owl had a muggle envelope in its beak, addressed to Hermione in slanted cursive letters.

"Oh," Hermione said as she took the envelope, "it must be from Mum and Dad."

Harry quelled his annoyance and sat back watching while Hermione opened the envelope and began to read.

When she started to smile like sunshine itself, he had to wonder. Hermione broke into a grin nearly bright enough to outshine the Christmas trees and she whirled to face him… and he was on the receiving end of full-on Hermione Granger joy. Pure and simple joy. He couldn't imagine what her parents' letter said, but he liked it already.

She seemed barely able to contain herself. "Harry! Oh! Here!" she shoved the letter at him, unable to get the words out on her own. Perplexed, Harry looked down at the letter in Miranda Granger's calligraphic pen.

_'Hermione, _

'We hope your tests are going well. Don't let yourself fret too much, honey, I'm sure you'll do brilliantly. Your dad and I are looking forward to you coming home for Christmas. Tell Harry that if he doesn't have any other plans for the holidays we'd love to have him.

'All our love,

'Mum and Dad'

Harry looked up at Hermione dumbly. She was bubbling over with excitement, her eyes glittering almost as beautifully as the Christmas lights. It made Harry felt heavy and tired, as though swimming in water-logged clothes. He looked down again at the letter from Hermione's mother. With deliberate moves, he folded it and put it on the table. "Hermione…" he began in a dreary voice, "I thought I told you—"

"But I _didn't_, Harry!" she said immediately.

Harry was truly puzzled, and it must have read in his face. Hermione shifted on the bench to directly face him, one leg crooked and folded atop the seat so she didn't have to twist horribly at the waist. "I didn't ask my parents to invite you over for Christmas, just like you asked me not to… they invited you themselves!"

Harry blinked, bewildered.

"They wouldn't have done that if they thought you a bother, Harry. They could have just never brought it up and tried to avoid it entirely, hoping I wouldn't ask, but _they_ invited you on their own." Hermione's luminous smile faltered. "This means you will come home with me, right?"

Harry was floored. He couldn't rightly grasp what had transpired in the last two minutes. Hermione's family actually _wanted_ him to be part of their Christmas? Hermione wanting to spend the holiday with him was humbling enough, but she was his girlfriend, she was _Hermione_… she cared about him like no one else in the world. But _Miranda and Jake Granger_? Could they possibly, _honestly_ want him around on an occasion as special as Christmas?

"Oh, please, Harry," Hermione took his arm in her hands and pressed closer. "Please say you'll come."

There was a letter from the Grangers granting him a place in their home right in front of him, and with Hermione imploring him with those eyes, that tone of voice, that passion in her presence… how could he possibly tell her no?

"Yeah… yeah, all right," he said, still off-balance from the offer but letting himself believe for a moment that _maybe_ he actually had a place to go. Like normal kids did… like kids with families.

Hermione made a squeaky sound and threw her arms around him. Harry had to grab the table to keep from toppling over under the enthusiasm in Hermione's embrace. Despite his misgivings, his shock, his amazement, he had to smile. He couldn't get one of those knock-the-wind-out-of-you Hermione hugs and _not_ smile.

Hermione was clutching him fiercely. "It's going to be great, Harry! You'll see! It'll be the best Christmas ever!" She drew back, her arms still wrapped around him, and planted a kiss on him. Not a darting peck like before either, but a full-mouth kiss in the middle of the Great Hall. Already it was the best Christmas of Harry's life.

Before he could respond in kind to her kiss, however, she moved away and leapt to her feet. "Come on, we've got to speak with Dumbledore."

"Huh… Dumbledore?" Harry felt he'd just now caught up to the Grangers inviting him to stay over for the Christmas holiday. He hadn't tracked over to the Dumbledore topic point yet.

Hermione took his arm, snagged the letter from her mother, and hauled Harry to his feet in her whirlwind of energy. Harry went along at once; he knew better than to stand in the way of a bound and determined Hermione. She hurried them out of the Great Hall, their bags and books forgotten on the table. "Yes. We'll need to ask the headmaster if we can impose upon a certain house elf again, just to be safe. Surely he won't say no. That just wouldn't do at all."

Harry didn't breathe a word of protest or offer a modicum of resistance as Hermione led him by the hand through the corridor. A few Gryffindor boys they crossed gave Harry a covert thumbs-up, no doubt expecting that Hermione was dragging him off to some broom closet somewhere to release some tension between study marathons. He supposed the few high-pitched giggles they left in their wake were girls who thought the same. Harry hadn't really noticed how many of their classmates were actually supportive of his and Hermione's relationship until they actually became a couple. They'd really been a stubborn duo to hold out against all the signs for so long.

At the headmaster's office, Hermione knocked and shortly thereafter Dumbledore's voice beckoned them inside. Hermione, still holding tightly to Harry's hand, led the way.

Dumbledore was not alone. Professor McGonagall was in the chair opposite the headmaster's desk, and she turned to look at Harry and Hermione when they entered. Harry could swear, for a moment, she even smiled faintly at the sight of them.

"Ah, Harry, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said in way of greeting, "If this is about the altercation between Mister Weasley and young Ginny, I've already been informed. As you might expect, news of that sort tends to travel fast within the castle walls."

Harry took the headmaster's unconcerned tone to mean at least Ron hadn't made good on his threat to beat up Seamus. At least they wouldn't have Ron in a worse mood than he already was for having brought detention upon himself for fighting so close to the holidays.

"Acutally, no, sir, we're here for something else," Hermione said, the first hints of flagging bravado creeping into her voice.

"Is that so? Well, then, I'm intrigued. Was there anything else for you and I to discuss, Professor McGonagall?"

McGonagall shook her head and stood. "No, that was everything. I had best return to my office and see to grading exams." She crossed Harry and Hermione as she headed toward the door of the headmaster's office. As she passed the young pair, she briefly rested her hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked after her retreating back, puzzled by the gesture, but if there was en explanation for that fleeting contact he never got it. McGonagall was gone before Harry had much time to think on it.

When the three of them were alone, Dumbledore sat back in his chair and regarded the two teenagers with kind eyes. "Now then, what brings you two to see me if not the Weasley family feud?"

Hermione didn't waste any time on warming up to the subject. "We came to ask if it would be possible to borrow Kimmy for the Christmas holiday, sir."

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

Hermione nodded, hesitated, then left Harry's side to place the letter from her parents on Dumbledore's desk. She retreated back to standing abreast with Harry and chewed on her bottom lip.

The headmaster picked up the letter, unfolded it, and read it leisurely. At the end, he nodded. "I really must take the time to get to know your parents better, Miss Granger. They seem to be lovely people. Would you say so, Harry?"

Harry blinked at the question, but he answered on reflex, "Yes, sir." No one would find Harry Potter saying a bad word against the Grangers.

Hermione covered her nervousness with words, and to most it was a very convincing cover to her anxiety. When she spoke it was always with a confidence that may or may not have been truly present. This time, it was mostly show; Hermione was jittery. Harry suspected he may be one of only three people who could truly detect it. "I know it's rather short-notice, Headmaster, but it would mean a great deal to both of us if Harry could spend Christmas with my family, and with the concerns for safety to take into consideration, well, it would be very reassuring to have Kimmy there in case anything happened. Not that we expect it to, of course, but there's no harm in being prepared for the worst—" She was rambling.

Harry glanced at Dumbledore and started when headmaster shifted his twinkling eyes to him, smiled, and ticked his head faintly in Hermione's direction. It was purposeful, deliberate, almost conspiratorial. Harry hadn't a clue what it was meant to communicate, but he knew Hermione would have been too wrapped up in her appeal to notice the subtle gesture. He reached up and touched her elbow to get her attention.

It broke Hermione from her spiel and she stopped to take a breath. She glanced at Harry, then back at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore took advantage of the pause. "I commend your prudence in this matter, Miss Granger. Of course concerns for personal safety must be considered, and I would not wish to be the one to deny Harry here a Granger family Christmas… however, it's not up to me. We'll have to ask Kimmy if she'll consent, as she _is_ a free house elf."

With that, Dumbledore stood and went to his fireplace. Harry and Hermione stood quietly watching while Dumbledore tossed in the floo powder and stared intently into the green flames.

Moments later, Kimmy emerged from the emerald fire, a pair of green oven mitts on her hands and wearing an overall-style pair of boxers that were covered in candy canes.

"Master Albus!" she said merrily the moment she was in the headmaster's office.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Kimmy grinned. "No, no, Kimmy was only making holiday treacles in cases Master Aberforth comes home for Christmas."

Dumbledore made a blissful face. "Mmmmm… I do hope you'll save me a few?"

"A dozen few or two."

"I've always loved your 'few'," Dumbledore chuckled, "I'd hate to keep you from your delectable treat-making, but might you spare a few moments of your time to speak with Harry and Miss Granger?"

Kimmy looked to Harry and Hermione and readily trotted over to stand before them. "Miss Hermione! Mister Harry Potter! Hellos."

"Hello, Kimmy. It's good to see you again."

Kimmy tugged off her oven mitts and fitted them over her ears for lack of a better place to put them.

Harry's lips twitched as he fought a smile.

"Go on, Miss Granger, ask her," Dumbledore said kindly. Kimmy looked from Dumbledore then up at Hermione questioningly, orb-like green eyes wide and curious.

Hermione knelt down to look Kimmy in the eye. "Kimmy… Harry and I were wondering if you might consent to staying over with us for Christmas? Harry's been invited to stay with me and my parents this holiday, and we'd all feel a lot better if you would be there to make sure nothing bad happens, like you did this past summer."

"Ooo! Kimmy would be happy to," she said at once with a little hop on the balls of her feet. One oven mitt skewed on her ear, dangerously close to falling off.

"You're sure we're not going to be taking you away from… um… Aberforth?" Hermione pressed, the last part awkwardly.

Harry could understand how strange it would feel to speak Dumbledore's brother's name in so informal a manner with the headmaster present.

Kimmy made a chortling noise that fairly baffled Harry, but the headmaster could interpret it all too well. "There's all too little danger of that, if you'd have the truth of it. Dear Kimmy here faithfully prepares every holiday for Aber and me, but I fear I make it back home for the holidays infrequently and Aberforth even less. And as Aberforth has been… 'detained' by prior engagements as of late, it's practically set in stone that he won't turn up this year. We do ask Kimmy that she not go to so much trouble, but she's difficult to talk out of things."

"Well, what happens when once you and Master Aberforth both show up and I've not made a single tart?" Kimmy countered passionately.

"The sky itself would fall down around our ears," Dumbledore answered promptly, in a grievous tone of voice. Harry got the feeling it was an old Dumbledore family tête-à-tête. Kimmy's answering smile would seem to suggest as much.

"So you wouldn't mind coming to my home for Christmas?" Hermione asked hopefully.

Kimmy shook her head and the oven mitts came off and fell to the floor. "Kimmy wouldn't mind. Kimmy wouldn't mind at all. She likes Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter."

Harry smiled. "We like you too, Kimmy."

Kimmy beamed up at him, then looked back at Hermione. "And Kimmy wouldn't mind Christmas with a families. Masters Albus and Aberforth have not been little in a very long time."

"Oh!" Hermione gasped and, before anyone in the room rightly knew it was going to happen, she reached out, snagged the little elf around the shoulders, and pulled her into a brief hug. "Kimmy, you can always spend the holidays with Harry and me if you like."

Kimmy drew back from the embrace, her eyes wide with wonder. For a moment, she almost looked like Dobby with her dazzled expression. "Truly, Mister Harry Potter?" Kimmy asked as she looked up at him.

"Of course, Kimmy," Harry answered. Hermione rose and stood at his side, smiling down at Kimmy gratefully.

"Dear me," Dumbledore said playfully, "looks as though I should tell Aberforth that he and I will have to compete for Kimmy's attention if we're not careful."

"Don't be silly, Master Albus. You and Master Aberforth are Kimmy's boys."

"Well, a relief," Dumbledore returned lightly, then his tone became less jocular as he said, "thank you for kindly agreeing to see that Harry and Miss Granger remain safe this holiday. It will be a load off my mind to know you'll be there."

Kimmy nodded earnestly, then she gasped. "Oh! My treacles!" and with that she dashed back into the fireplace. The flames swelled and swallowed the little house elf with a belch of green, then the color returned to flickering orange and yellow.

Dumbledore shook his head, a smile on his face, and he turned back to face Harry and Hermione. "That was very generous of you to extend such an invitation. Kimmy's particularly fond of holidays, but it's been a long time since there's been much of a Dumbledore family holiday. She never says that she's lonely, but I know she'll be thrilled to be surrounded once more by Christmas cheer."

"It's the least we can do after what she's done for us, sir," Hermione said, "and we've grown rather fond of her besides."

"Then it would seem your Christmas will be all the merrier for her presence."

When Dumbledore glanced at him, Harry nodded immediate agreement.

Dumbledore paused. "I trust I need not tell you to be careful?"

Hermione turned serious almost on a dime. She shook her head firmly. "No, Headmaster, we will be careful. We know Voldemort's still out there."

"Always remember that, it will serve you well. As Alastor was so fond of saying…"

"Constant vigilance," Harry quipped humorlessly.

Dumbledore nodded with a wan smile. "Sage advice. Now, I think you should go find Mister Weasley and see that he's cooled down a bit. I doubt any of us want to see him doing lines when his time would be better utilized studying for his midterms."

Harry and Hermione left the headmaster's office together to track down Ron. Once they were out of sight of Dumbledore's office, Hermione sidled in close to Harry and wrapped her arm around his.

Christmas holiday was looking up.


	40. Chapter 40

A/N: First of all, I have to sincerely apologize to those who have recently posted comments to my LJ discussion forum about "Vox Corporis"; I know it's been a few days and I haven't responded to the latest posts, but I have been writing like a madwoman, and I hope the following reason exonerates me for putting my LJ to the side. Said reason being…

This is what MissAnnThropic looks like when she's doing her happy victory dance. Last night I finished "Vox Corporis". It's done, the epic is at an end. You, of course, still have the latter half of the story to read, but the behemoth is complete. It ended up being 542 pages long and over 310,000 words, but at last it's done. It's bittersweet to finish such an undertaking in which I was so heavily invested… this story has been my every spare moment for nine months. I may not know what to do with myself now that I don't have this to take up whenever I have a free minute.

Very early into "Vox Corporis" I knew it was going to be my final opus in the realm of fanfiction; I'm leaving the world of fandom to try my hand at writing something all my own, and as sad as that parting is (for fanfiction has been my retreat for many, _many_ years), I truly feel this story is a fitting and just last performance for my fanfic days. I'll step out happy with "Vox Corporis" being my last show.

Of course, I will still have your thoughts, reactions, and comments to enjoy as the remaining portion of this story, as yet unposted, is filtered through my beta and posted. Stay tuned for the end of this epic, and rest easy because this story is finished (no fear that it will become a terminal WIP).

I don't know how it could be possible, but I hope this fic ends up being as memorable to some of you as it always will be to me.

* * *

"I don't… I don't know how to do what you're asking," the old man said in a tremulous voice. A voice that had once been so unwavering was made almost unrecognizable by its new quiver. "I… I can't do what you want."

The man was cowering on the floor, stripped of all but his undergarments. His state of undress displayed the long lines of bleeding wounds that striped his back and sides, weeping red even as the man wept salty tears.

"Do you take me for a _fool_, wandsmith?" a dark, sinister voice hissed venomously. A horribly familiar voice. That voice. His voice. The air chilled to carry his voice, to ferry his words, to give him breath.

"I… please… you don't understand… the core… they're brother-wands, yours and his… phoenix feather… _priori incantatum_. I can't change that!" the wandsmith wailed in terrified protest.

Voldemort flicked his wand, slashed it through the air, and the wandsmith screamed as a fresh cut sliced open his side, precise and swift as a razor. It was a second before the blood welled and trailed down his heaving ribcage, like water escaping an over-full boiling kettle. Ollivander staggered on his hands and knees under the onslaught. He nearly went down, but at the last moment managed to stay supported by his trembling elbows. His blood dripped to the floor beneath him.

"I can't change it! Please! Stop this!"

"I will stop when you have given me what I want."

Ollivander shook his head weakly. "It can't… it can't be done… you're mad!"

Another twitch of his wand and Ollivander cried out. The wandsmith collapsed on the ground in a heap, fell into his own pooled blood, when his right hand flew to his chest and clutched into a fist. Ollivander seized and grimaced. After a moment he went lax, ashen and trembling.

"Must I tear your heart apart, old man?" Voldemort demanded.

"I… can't… can't… please," he lay panting, head and eyes rolling.

"You had best. I will not be played the fool thrice by this pathetic _boy_. You will do as I bid you, wandsmith. Your reputation for wandsmithing precedes you, and I expect _satisfaction_ from your work. When next I cast the killing curse it will destroy him, _you_ will see to that."

Ollivander muttered feebly, half mad from the pain, "_Priori incantatum_… _priori_… _priori incantatum_…"

Voldemort turned in a rustle of black robes and seethed in disgust. "Why do you all persist in protecting this _worthless child_ with your lives?!" The dark wizard sucked in a breath and turned back to the cowering wandsmith. A sudden, disquieting calm had settled about him. "No matter… I see you are determined to die a slow, agonizing death, and I am more than willing to oblige. But perhaps you'd care to know that if you refuse to do as I command, I will find another wandsmith who will. Perhaps the talent runs in your family?"

Ollivander opened his eyes in mounting horror. "What?" he croaked.

Voldemort turned to a shadow in the outskirts of the room and barked, "Lucius, bring her."

Ollivander tried to stir. "You're asking for the impossible… it can't be done!"

"Perhaps you merely lack vision, or motivation, but I think I may be able to persuade you to find some of both."

"What… what have you done?"

The Death Eater returned, pushing before him a young woman. She trembled and shrieked as she was manhandled into the room with the dark lord. Her eyes turned in horror to the bloody and broken man on the floor, then they widened when she looked beyond the wounds and battered flesh to the man's face. Her own face lost all color. "Grandfather!" She tried to rush to him.

Voldemort caught her by her long brown hair and jerked her back. The girl was knocked to her knees and knelt, shaking and crying at the dark lord's feet.

"Giselda! No!" Ollivander tried to crawl toward the weeping young woman.

Voldemort flicked his wand and Ollivander was thrown back. He slid across the floor and slammed into the wall with a cry of pain.

"Grandfather…" the woman sobbed.

"We'll have it from you or from her, wandsmith," Voldemort said casually.

Ollivander struggled to rise to his knees. "No… please… she… she doesn't know the trade! She's a _seamstress_, for Merlin's sake!"

"Oh… well, that is unfortunate then. Had she been of use to me I may have been able to spare her life. But, if she cannot serve my purpose, then…" the wizard leveled his wand tip against the girl's throat.

"_Stop_!" Ollivander surged to his feet, fell, and hiccupped. "Don't hurt her… I'll… I'll do as you ask. Just don't… don't hurt her."

"Do not fail me, wandsmith, or she will suffer far worse than you."

Ollivander, on hands and knees like a dog, broke down and wept uncontrollably. Black closed around Voldemort, Mister Ollivander, and Giselda.

In the blackness a beast awoke. Coat black as midnight, ice-blue eyes cold and piercing. Claws slashed and tore at the darkness. Fangs bared to the evil. Tear it apart, kill it, rip it to pieces. Wild fury, untempered rage. The agitated panther let loose a ferocious, blood-curdling roar.

Harry snapped awake screaming. It ripped from his throat, pulled out of his chest as though he would tear in two if he didn't get it out. His heart was hammering, the night was pulsing around him, the heartbeat of the night… too close, too strong, crying to the animal inside him.

Harry registered that he was in the dorm of Gryffindor tower, in his bed at Hogwarts. His scream had wakened his roommates. They were turning on lights, forming a ring around his bed. They were talking, surely, asking if he was all right.

Harry couldn't hear them. He couldn't hear past the spitting, roaring black cat inside him. His skin prickled, his hair stood on end, his body tensed and shook.

The jaguar was fighting to break through. He was barely holding human form. His body screamed to change, burned to give over to the feral fury, to become a thing that could tear and rip and rend so effortlessly. He _desperately_ wanted to be that, a creature his enemies would fear to face. His heart ached to be powerful. Deadly.

Harry gasped. He beat back the jaguar with all he had. The cat was not content to be placated. It snarled and hissed, it twisted and struck out with brandished claws when he tried to force it back. Harry felt another cry, different, more a cry of agonized effort, tear from his throat.

He would lose. He couldn't hold his form. The jaguar would win. In front of everyone… they were all watching him. He must not change. He didn't know if he could stop it.

The jaguar lunged at the restraints keeping it at bay. Harry jerked, he rolled, and he rose to hands and knees on his mattress, hands and legs braced apart. He fought against the cat with all his might, but it was not going to back down without a fight. How could a boy hope to win out against a jaguar, even the one inside him? He couldn't keep this up, he wasn't stronger than the panther… he'd turn, and Merlin, what would he do then? The blind rage inside him was wild, thick… it screamed for blood, for prey, for a foe to take down with fang and claw.

Someone touched him, a hand on his shoulder. Harry almost turned on instinct to bite. He almost turned his form. Instead he braced, every muscle seemed to lock, and he gave a cry of warning, of protest, of plea… he wasn't sure, but if they touched him he'd take his attention away from the jaguar, and if he got distracted he'd become the cat.

The hand jerked back and Harry breathed raggedly, his tensed muscles shook, and he clenched his eyes shut as he battled the furious cat.

At the outer edge of his hearing, beyond the jaguar's roaring and hissing, he heard a voice, a pinpoint of hope. "What is it? Ron said you needed me, what… oh! What's happened?"

"Dunno, he woke screaming and he's having some kind of fit. He won't let us near him."

He couldn't keep it up. He'd let loose the panther any moment. Hermione, help!

"Draw his curtains, give us some privacy, I'll calm him down." There was rustling, it seemed miles outside his awareness, then he heard "_silencio_."

And then her voice was close, directly in front of him. "Harry… open your eyes."

He obeyed and saw Hermione lying on his bed underneath him, on her back and between his supporting arms. She must have crawled underneath his body and shuffled up between his arms. She was in her pajamas and sleep-mussed, but her eyes were crystal clear. She was looking up at him in fervent worry.

Harry was quaking, he was breaking, his breath came in uneven rasps.

Understanding flashed in Hermione's eyes. "It's all right, Harry… let it go."

He did. Maybe he could not have held it back another moment anyway. He let loose the jaguar and it leapt into his skin, formed it to fit the shape of the cat. Harry's clutching hands became black paws with curved claws. Claws which ripped into the mattress and sheets. Harry screamed, an ear-splitting roar. He jerked his arms, raked his claws down the mattress and tore the bedding to shreds on either side of Hermione's body. He shook his head from side to side, canines bared, given over to the madness of the cornered wild animal.

For a second he was out of control. But as quickly as it had erupted it began to ebb. The flashpoint passed and the aftermath was not nearly so frightening. His claws dug into the torn mattress but didn't rip open new gouges. A growl rumbled in his throat but he didn't let loose another roar. The cat had its fit but it seemed once it saw there were no enemies to attack it grudgingly backed off. Harry stood over Hermione, straddling her, untouched and unharmed beneath his black body.

Hermione was watching him carefully. When he met her eyes, his breath quick and shallow, she ventured up a hand and touched his cheek.

Harry closed his eyes and commanded the jaguar to abide by Hermione, recognize that she was calm and take an example from that. The jaguar balked a moment, faltered, then let itself be soothed by Hermione's touch.

It went willingly when Harry cast it back to that place inside him.

Harry opened his eyes again and his fingers were splayed over the ruin of his mattress as he looked down at Hermione from human eyes. With a bone-weary sigh, he lowered his body on top of hers and gathered her up in his arms, his one pocket of sanity and safety in a tempest. He held her tightly as the nightmare washed over him, reformed in his mind in such horrifying clarity, in the wake of the jaguar's emergence.

She ran her fingers through his damp hair with one hand and circled his back with the other arm. "What happened?" she asked in a whisper. She let her fingers stop at his brow and she gasped, "Harry! You're freezing."

He was shivering, that was true enough, but he'd rather stay in her arms than do anything about it. Hermione had other ideas. She wriggled free to sit up and gather his blanket where it had balled up at the foot of his bed. Harry sat up beside her, sick from the vision, and Hermione wrapped the blanket around him. Harry glanced down at his bed. It looked a fright. Sheets damp with sweat, the mattress torn open, claw marks and stuffing and down feathers everywhere. It was disturbing to look at. Hermione had been lying in the middle of his tantrum. He trembled to think what might have happened to her. What if she'd been in the way of his claws?

Hermione had fetched her wand, gave it a flick, and said, "_Reparo_."

The torn mattress and sheets repaired themselves, erasing the evidence of his brief transformation into a savage beast. It didn't improve the tussled, tossed condition of his sheets, though. Nor did it remove the memory of what had woken him in such a state.

Hermione shuffled on the bed to his side, wrapped her arms around his blanket-cocooned body, and pulled him into her. Harry went willingly, leaned into her with his head on her shoulder, and Hermione squeezed him tight as though she could give him all of her body heat by willing it. "What happened?" she repeated.

Harry took a breath. "Voldemort… I saw him with Ollivander… he's using the wandsmith to… to remove the _priori incantatum_ on his wand against mine."

Hermione sucked in a breath.

"He has… Ollivander's granddaughter. He's using her…," Harry continued breathlessly then broke off to shake. The blanket wasn't helping, he was still so cold. He drew back and opened his arms, the covers cascading from his arms like a winged creature. He pulled Hermione into the blanket with him and held her close. She was drawn practically into his lap by his insistent hold, but she went without a moment's pause. She slipped her warm, comforting arms around his back inside their little haven. She was so very warm, and soft, and he could be shaken here and know he was safe, so very safe… it helped to beat the horror of the nightmare back, away from his waking world and back to the landscape of his dreams. It was still terrifying there, but not mind-numbingly so.

"We have to tell Dumbledore what you saw," Hermione said with conviction.

Harry just wanted to burrow deeper into Hermione's warm, warm arms and hide from the world for a bit. "Must we go now?"

"I really don't think we should wait on this, Harry."

He knew she was right. "All right. Let me get dressed and put myself together a bit."

Hermione cupped her hand around the back of his neck and gave a gentle squeeze. "I'll just hurry over to the girls' dorm and throw on some clothes. I'll meet you down in the common room, okay?"

Harry nodded mutely.

Hermione gave him a parting hug, slipped from their shared blanket, then disappeared beyond the curtains of his bed.

Harry still procrastinated a moment before he pushed aside the curtains and climbed out of bed. His roommates were all looking at him with wide, worried eyes. It made him want to turn right back around and curl up in bed behind drawn curtains. But Hermione was waiting for him.

Ron came up to him at once. "Harry… you all right, mate?"

Harry was all too aware of Dean, Seamus, and Neville in the room with them. "Uh… just feeling ill… I'm going to see Madam Pomfrey now."

"Need me to go with you?" Ron asked.

"Hermione's going with me," Harry answered, whether that was an answer to Ron's question or not he didn't know. He was too frazzled to think about it. He rustled up some clothes for the trek to the headmaster's office, ran a comb twice through his hair for what good it would do, then laced up his trainers and headed down the stairs. It was a relief just to be free of the stares of his roommates. Ron didn't trail along after him. Apparently 'Hermione's going with me' meant Ron didn't need to come along as well. Maybe he thought Hermione would do a better job of taking care of him on her own, a girlfriend thing. Harry almost wished Ron had come with him… he didn't fancy explaining his nightmare three times. But he was too beleaguered to turn back and fetch Ron. He just wanted the telling to be over. He was so sick and tired of Voldemort in his life, even when they were vast distances from each other.

Hermione was waiting for him in the common room and she hurried to his side the moment he came down. He was grateful at least that she was there with him… it might make telling Dumbledore the grisly details easier to have her at his side.

The halls were hauntingly lifeless as they made their way through the castle. The only being they met on their way through the corridors was Nearly-Headless Nick, who asked why they were up and about so late. When they told him they needed to see Dumbledore the ghost disappeared through a wall. Presumably he had gone and roused the headmaster, because Dumbledore was expecting them when they reached his office, still decked in a dressing robe.

At first sight of Harry he grew even more concerned than being awakened at such an hour disposed him to be to begin with. "Harry, you look dreadful. What's wrong?"

'What _isn't_ wrong' his tired body seemed to bemoan. "It's Voldemort."

Dumbledore's expression became grim. He conjured a couch and waved them toward it. Hermione practically guided Harry to the couch and sat down with him on the plump cushions. She pressed close to his side, just shy of crawling up into his lap in consideration of their headmaster only a few feet away. Harry gripped Hermione's hand tightly. He didn't want to do it; the vision of Ollivander torn and bleeding was still so horribly vivid in his mind's eye.

She knew what he wanted. She took up the tale. "Ron woke me, said that Harry was having a terrible nightmare and they couldn't snap him out of it. It was one of his dream visions about Voldemort. Voldemort has Mister Ollivander, and Mister Ollivander's granddaughter. He's using her as a hostage to get Mister Ollivander to alter Voldemort's wand so it no longer invokes the _priori incantatum_ when he uses it against Harry's wand."

Dumbledore mulled over that for a moment. "I see… well, that clears up a bit of a mystery. It was puzzling to us at first why the dark wizard would kidnap a wandsmith when there are so many others who would seem more likely targets. We have feared Voldemort took Mister Ollivander for reasons very much like you describe."

Not surprisingly, that didn't make Harry feel at all better.

"Is it even possible, sir?" Hermione asked. "I thought wandsmithing magic like that was fairly resistant to tampering."

"It is. And as far as we know the _priori incantatum_ cannot be nullified. But then, neither have we ever had much reason to experiment with the possibility. After Mister Ollivander's disappearance, when we began to speculate as to Voldemort's designs with the wandsmith, the ministry began testing on brother-wands, rare enough in their own right, to see what exactly they can and cannot do to each other in greater detail. There have even been wandsmiths in to try and remove the _priori incantatum_, but they have not met with any success thus far. But I believe that if anyone could break the _priori incantatum_ it would be Mister Ollivander. And with his granddaughter's life in the balance… this is very disturbing." Dumbledore stopped again. "Harry? Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?"

"No… I'll be all right in a minute," he answered. Sadly, he had enough experience with these kinds of nightmare visions to know. He looked up at the headmaster, met his eyes for the first time since arriving in his office, and noted the genuine concern in the older wizard's face.

Dumbledore nodded, though he still looked as though he might like to summon the mediwitch anyway. Instead, he asked, "Was there anything else in your dream?"

Harry frowned. "Lucius Malfoy was there. Mister Ollivander was hurt… bleeding everywhere… that's all I saw before I… woke up."

The headmaster sat back thoughtfully.

"What now?" Hermione asked in the following silence.

"I will need to take this information to some of my trusted allies as soon as possible, in fact as soon as you're on your way back to Gryffindor tower I'll begin making house-calls. I don't know yet how we might be able to use this information to any sort of advantage, but at least it paints a clearer picture of Voldemort's current activities.

"I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention immediately.

"For now, I think the two of you should return to your rooms and try to get some sleep. This night has been eventful enough for all of us, I'd wager. Will you be needing some manner of draught to help you rest, Harry?"

Rather than explain that he would really rather not fall back asleep at all for the remainder of the night, Harry just shook his head.

"As you will, then. And one more thing before you go… in light of this new development, I wonder if perhaps Harry wouldn't be better off staying at Hogwarts this holiday season?"

Harry could understand the concern. He'd stay if Dumbledore asked him to without putting up a fight. It made sense to him, and he almost opened his mouth to consent, but Hermione stiffened at his side and it held his tongue. When he glanced at her she was sitting rigidly, a well-familiar scowl of stubbornness on her face. She just barely narrowed her eyes as she turned over the headmaster's exact words. "You're not _telling_ him to stay?"

Actually, Dumbledore _hadn't_ outright told him he was to stay at the school. Harry had just jumped to that conclusion, but Hermione was right when he thought harder on it. It had been more a query than command.

Dumbledore's mouth ticked in a brief smile, almost a half-wince. "No. I made the mistake once of handling you two like children where Voldemort was concerned, and I like to think I learn my lessons. I won't tell Harry that he's not allowed to leave… but I would have reservations." Dumbledore glanced at Harry. "I'll leave this up to you and Miss Granger."

Harry turned his eyes to Hermione. It was her family in danger, her life on the line for being with him, she had so much more to lose than he; he would leave the final decision up to her. She'd make the right decision, he was certain of that. It was a relief, to know so unerringly that she'd know the right answer, and being able to put it in her hands.

Hermione met his eyes a moment, gave him a very faint smile, and turned to address Dumbledore. "Headmaster… we can understand your concerns, but we _will_ have Kimmy with us for protection, and we don't know that this means Voldemort's any nearer to moving against Harry or the wizarding world anytime soon. Who knows how long he'll wait to see if the _priori incantatum_ effect can be removed from his wand, if it even can be. I don't think we should change any of our plans."

Dumbledore didn't look wildly thrilled about that, but he merely nodded and sighed. "Well, then at least do me the courtesy of exercising extra caution? For my own peace of mind."

"We will, sir," Hermione replied.

Dumbledore stood. "Then it would seem I have some visits to certain colleagues to make, and you two should head back to bed. It's very late."

Harry wordlessly left the headmaster's office with Hermione.

On the trek back through the deserted corridors, Hermione was fast by his side. Her hand stayed clasped in his, and she let him set the pace. As they neared the Gryffindor tower, Harry found that pace slowing. He didn't particularly want to go back up to his bed.

When he and Hermione returned to the dark common room, Hermione didn't turn to him to bid him goodnight. She silently led him over to the couch, unfolded the blanket thrown over the back, and gave him a gentle look. "Come on, let's lie down."

Harry looked up at her, afraid to hope.

Hermione cast him a smile. "I _know_ you don't think I'm letting you go back up to that room where I can't check on you every ten seconds." Her tone was teasing, but he also knew she meant what she'd said whole-heartedly. His lioness Hermione was in fine form tonight.

Harry could not have loved her more than he did just then. Hermione lay down first, scrunched against the back of the couch, and Harry squeezed in next to her. Hermione tossed the blanket over them both then settled her head on his shoulder much as they had crowded on to the couch together on several previous occasions. And as before, Harry brought his arms around her. He held her, maybe a little too tight and a little too needy, but Hermione didn't utter a word of complaint.

"Thank you," he said softly, afraid his voice would catch if he said more. He couldn't begin to tell her all the reasons he was thanking her, but right then it was mostly for not leaving him to face the night alone.

"This is for me, too. I want to know you're okay. But you're welcome."

Harry lay quietly with her in his arms a time before he had the courage to ask the question racing through his mind. "Why did I change? I don't understand what happened. I woke up and it was like I couldn't stop it."

Hermione took a telling breath, classic Hermione about to lay out a theory. "I think it may have been some amplification of the fight or flight response. Your dream visions seem to have a powerful effect on you, and you would never be more capable of fighting or fleeing than as the panther. At least it's the best I can figure." Hermione gave a one-shoulder shrug, since her other one was wedged into the couch cushions and not really allotted free range of motion. "It makes sense, I think."

"I guess so. How did you know I was fighting to hold my form? You told me to let it go, like you could tell."

"I could." Hermione lifted her head to look at him. She seemed to search for something in his eyes, though for what Harry didn't know. Hermione's brow crinkled a bit before she said, "I can tell when you're touching the jaguar, there's this feel to you that's different, but just now… it was mostly in your eyes. You know how Crookshanks can look at you when it's dark and the light hits his eyes just right and they reflect like little blue mirrors?"

Harry nodded.

"Your eyes are like that. When you're borrowing the jaguar's vision and the light hits them just right, they shine back blue-white like a cat's."

Harry had no idea he ever looked different when he was touching the jaguar.

Hermione smirked. "That and I've teetered on that mad edge between human and cat, and fallen off it, a lot more than you have when I was trying to learn how to touch the lioness like you do the jaguar. I suppose it made me good at spotting it."

Harry gave a small smile in return.

Hermione lowered her head to his shoulder again. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep?" she asked into his chest.

If she'd asked him twenty minutes ago, or in Dumbledore's office, he would have flat-out said no. But if she was going to stay with him…

"Will you stay with me?" he asked.

Hermione snorted and wrapped her arm around him. "Of course."

"Then yes."

He felt Hermione smile against him and it really did a lot toward banishing the disquiet in his bones. He might have drifted off right then if another question didn't prick at his thoughts.

"Hermione… are you sure about me still going with you for Christmas? I mean, it might be safer if I stayed at Hogwarts like Dumbledore suggested."

Hermione stilled at that. He'd struck a chord. She lifted her head again and regarded him closely. "It probably would be, and I almost gave in when Dumbledore first brought it up."

"So what changed your mind?"

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip faintly, but a determined light bloomed behind her eyes. "The fact that the last time Voldemort was causing so much damage throughout the wizarding world it was eleven years before he was stopped. It could be just as long this time for all we know, if not longer. We won't be Hogwarts students with Dumbledore to watch over us forever. And I thought, how long will we hide out of fear? How long will we put off living our lives because Voldemort could show up? And I knew that I didn't want to live like that. Do you understand?"

More than she knew. She didn't want to start stockpiling the joys of life in a vault somewhere, unlived and dangling on a promise of someday. He felt like he was always trying to make up for lost happiness during his years with the Dursleys. It was approaching the same desire from different ends. They only wanted a few snatched moments of happiness, a little normality in their lives, and it was a sad state of affairs that they should feel guilty for wanting nothing more extraordinary than that.

"Yeah, I understand."

"You're not upset with me, then?"

Harry gave her a lop-sided smile. "Mione, I couldn't be _upset_ with you unless you chopped up my Firebolt and used it for mulch or something, and even that I'd probably forgive you for within the week, ten days at the outside."

"Oh, that's so sweet, Harry."

"Not that I _want_ you to."

Hermione chuckled. "Well, lucky for you I'm not one much for gardening."

"Well, no worries, then."

Hermione shook her head in amusement and then snuggled back down at his side. Harry had never felt back to his warped definition of normal, and even edging toward better than fine, so soon after a Voldemort dream in his life. He knew the difference was cuddled up to him on the couch.

He was starting to feel drowsy, and Hermione's breathing was evening out as she drifted toward sleep; he counted the passage of time on her exhales. Before he slipped into slumber, however, one more thing snared him, like a thorn bush catching his pant leg.

"Mione?" he said softly.

"Mmm hmmm," she murmured sleepily.

"I… I know you only wanted to help, but if that happens again, if you see me losing control of the jaguar like that… I don't want you getting in the way."

"Why?" she asked in an unconcerned voice.

Was she serious? Wouldn't it be painfully obvious? "Because I couldn't stand the thought of hurting you."

Hermione was nonplussed. "You'd never hurt me, Harry."

Harry swallowed a sick feeling in his gut. "But if I wasn't in _control_, if I accidentally hurt you…"

Hermione huffed out a breath, treating this all a bit too cavalierly for Harry's liking. He just wanted her safe, was that really so outlandish? And shouldn't she be jumping all over the voice of reason bandwagon with him? It was her specialty far more so than his.

"I think you're in control more than you're giving yourself credit for," Hermione said softly.

Harry found that more confusing than helpful. Though Hermione didn't lift her head to look at his face, she seemed to know his reaction all the same. "You did a number on your bed, but I don't have a scratch on me."

Harry was still turning that over in his head when Hermione undeniably fell asleep. Harry was not long in following her example. And his dreams were not plagued by dark wizards and bleeding wandsmiths. In fact, he didn't dream, and dreamless sleep was better than residual nightmares. He'd take the middle ground with alacrity when he had been braced for the bleak badlands of nightmares.

He woke three times after falling asleep on the couch in Hermione's arms. Once was to a ghost of a sound, a phantom noise that he could not find when he woke. He looked around the dark common room but there was nothing but the sound of Hermione's breathing. He wondered if maybe he didn't wake up to hear it and know that things were still all right. The second time he woke it was morning and Hermione was gone. He opened his eyes to see her and Ron standing a few feet away, speaking somberly in hushed tones. She was no doubt filling their friend in on the details of last night while he slept. He was glad for that; he hadn't relished going into the unpleasant recount again. He left her to it. He dozed off once more, this time with Crookshanks on the armrest near his head, his constant purring a lulling sound. When he woke the last time Hermione was gently shaking him by the shoulder and telling him they had to get down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Ron was waiting on them a pace behind Hermione, and when Harry glanced up at the redhead Ron smiled. Maybe a little forced for knowing what had really happened to Harry last night, but not enough to run him off.

Harry got up off the couch and found he wasn't daunted by the notion of facing the day.


	41. Chapter 41

A/N: As we are coming to the Christmas chapters of "Vox Corporis", I need to make a comment here, not knowing how necessary it will ultimately be.

In case it isn't painfully obvious from my writing, I'm an American. I don't have any British friends, so when I wrote this part of the story I had no idea how British Christmases are different from American Christmases (if they are at all). So if it turns out that Christmas is different across the pond, all I can say is that Harry and Hermione have a very American Christmas :)

* * *

Hermione liked to think of herself as a good friend to Ronald Weasley. She helped him out in his classes to such a degree that it would give some teachers cause to call it cheating. She verbally dueled with him, their little games of give and take, bickering and heckling each other like siblings. She'd tear the arm off of anyone who would think to hurt him, and with the power of a lioness at her disposal now that could be a literal threat.

And because she tried to be a fast and true friend, she did her best to commiserate with Ron when he laid into the varied shortcomings of one Seamus Finnegan from the moment they boarded the Hogwarts Express to return home for Christmas holiday. She could certainly understand why Ron would take exception to their classmate dating his little sister. He was a good big brother, or at least he tried to be. No matter that Ginny had a surplus of big brothers to watch over her and resented Ron's meddling with a fiery passion. At least it made sense, and Hermione approached Ron's displeasure with that angle in mind. She did the bit of a supportive friend and listened to Ron slander poor Seamus seven ways from Sunday.

But Hermione was starting to reach her limit of just how long she could listen to Ron prattle on about the vile and wicked Seamus. To hear Ron talk, one would think Seamus was the foremost of Voldemort's henchmen.

They'd been on the train for hours and Ron's indignation and anger about his little sister's choice in dating partners was wearing Hermione's compassion thin. Seamus wasn't really _that_ bad, and Hermione thought in some ways Ginny and Seamus were a good match. They had a similar spunk to them, a bit of wildfire in their personalities. If nothing else they probably had a good time together, be it snogging or just taking the mickey out of each other in ways that would make Molly Weasley blush.

And Ron was starting to repeat himself. He was running out of new insults to fling Seamus's absentee way and rehashed old indecencies. Hermione stole a glance at Harry sitting next to the window on the same bench as she. She absolutely gave up when she saw that Harry, Ron's mate, someone to take the guy's stance on this as almost an honorary brother to Ginny, was not paying attention at all. He was watching the snowy landscape race by as the train sped down the track.

He must have felt her eyes on him, because just then Harry glanced over at her… and he offered a very apologetic smile for being unable to hang in there with Ron's crisis any longer. He'd bailed on Hermione, and she wondered just how long she'd been suffering Ron's tirade alone.

Suddenly a fiendish smile flickered over Harry's mouth, a glint came to his eyes, and he turned to Ron. "It really is wretched of Seamus. Can't figure what Ginny must be thinking."

"I know!" Ron yelped.

"So Ginny's riding with her friends, then, I expect?"

Ron's face hardened when the implication sank in and his color darkened to a worrisome scarlet. "She'd _better_ be!" Ron stood at once. "If she's in the same compartment as Seamus I'll… I'll…"

They never heard what he would do, because he vanished into the corridor of the rocking train, off to track down his little sister and ensure she wasn't holed up with Dark Lord Apprentice Seamus.

When they were alone in the train compartment (save for the stowed familiars over their heads), Harry looked at Hermione and smiled.

"Oh, you're terrible," she said, but her relief to have Ron out of their car was palpable. The resulting silence was a godsend.

With a chuckle, Hermione slid across the sparse bench space between them. Harry held out his arm, Hermione tucked up against his side, and he dropped his arm down around her and held her close. She snuggled contently against him and rested her head on his shoulder. "You know," Hermione said teasingly, "if Ginny and Seamus _are_ off somewhere snogging Ginny's liable to give _you_ a black eye for setting Ron on them."

"I'd take the black eye right now, thanks," Harry returned in a likewise playful tone of voice.

Hermione rolled her eyes, poked him in the side, and Harry gave a strange chirrup and flinched away. Hermione brought up her head at once, a smile blooming on her face. "Why, Harry Potter, are you _ticklish_?"

"I don't think so," Harry answered plainly, "but then, no one's ever bothered to try tickling me before. I don't think Dudley's little love taps with the boxing gloves count. In any case, I never laughed about it."

Hermione smirked and like any good, methodical academician she poked him in the ribs again to see what happened. Harry jerked, made a strangled noise… and a quick smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. Hermione grinned and poked him again, really starting to enjoy this new game. "Hey," Harry said, breaking into a full smile even as he tried to sidle away, "cut that out."

Hermione giggled. "Oh, not a chance." She poked him again. Harry wriggled but he was already backed into the corner, no way to escape. He laughed, and he sounded surprised that being poked in the ribs could make him laugh. "Hermione, really, stop. That…"

"Tickles? That's the point, Harry." She used both hands this time, a flurry of fingers digging at his side. If Harry had never been tickled before, she meant to do a bang on job.

Harry chuckled, then he laughed, then he was howling with laughter as he feebly tried to fend off her attack. Hermione's breath caught at the sound. She'd never heard Harry laugh like that. Never. It was like music. Deeper than his 'that's amusing' laugh, throaty and rich, both older and younger at the same time. It almost hurt to think this might be the first time Harry had ever laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes. The first time he'd ever belly-laughed to the point where he couldn't breathe. From the first time anyone had ever cared enough to tickle him.

Hermione found herself laughing along with him for the joy of his laugh.

When he could stand no more, Harry grabbed her wrists and tugged. Hermione was thrown off balance and fell into him. Harry met her with his mouth on hers. That worked, too. Hermione opened to his tongue when it teased her lips. They may have kissed for minutes on end, but they were still breathless from their tussle and Harry broke first to take a deep breath. Hermione, content as a cat in a sunny patch, purred, "Not fair."

"I was desperate."

"You're ticklish." Hermione pulled her hands free from his grip to wrap her arms around his neck. They were inches apart, their noses almost touching. Harry's eyes were bright with laughter, his cheeks pink, his mouth still upturned at the corners. "Guess I am," he said, and it seemed a wondrous new discovery to him, too.

Hermione leaned in and kissed him, languidly and deep. Harry tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her closer. He gave as good as he got. Hermione might not have any means for comparison, but she thought Harry a very good kisser. He rendered her nearly senseless every time, and she thought that should say something. But kissing was one of those gut-instincts things that always came naturally to Harry.

Harry's hand drifted to the side of her throat, which Hermione knew meant he was about to brush her hair aside so he could nibble on her neck, when they were rudely interrupted.

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

They broke apart to find Ron standing in the car doorway looking reproachfully at them.

Managing a contrite smile, Hermione backed away from Harry.

"Sorry, Ron," Harry said, even sounding a little abashed for having been caught in the middle of snogging their mutual friend.

Ron grunted and moved into the compartment. With a scowl he dropped down on to the bench across from them.

"So, um, did you find Ginny?" Hermione asked.

Ron's face twisted. "Well, the good news is I showed up before her and that wanker Seamus got as far as you and Harry."

That actually surprised Hermione… not that she'd say as much to Ron. Ginny might be a year younger than her, but she was generally three years braver when it came to boys.

"I thought it was gross watching you two go at it," Ron groused, "but watching Ginny snog someone is even worse."

"Umm… thanks?" Harry said uncertainly.

Ron's lips pursed as though he'd bitten into a sour grape.

"Oh, look," Hermione sat up straighter and leaned forward to peer out the window, "we're coming up on King's Cross." And she couldn't help but think it saved them a dreadfully awkward, ugly moment with a grumpy Ron. If they were lucky, they could shove off that initiated train of thought and part ways on a good note.

Ron let his next insult to Seamus's character, or maybe something a bit testy about Harry and Hermione acting their age for once, die unvoiced on his tongue.

It was a press of students, with their luggage in tow, pouring out of the train on to the platform. It was almost as noisy and boisterous as the beginning of term when classmates were seeing one another for the first time in months. Clusters of friends were bidding each other a happy Christmas then hurrying off to find their guardians. Families were reuniting left and right. Crookshanks and Hedwig were in their respective cages, but Kimmy was running circles around the trio in her Chihuahua disguise. She'd tied a bit of red and green ribbon around her neck in celebration of the season, but it might serve to pass for a collar if any stationmaster got finicky about an unsupervised animal.

Not that anyone was likely to even notice little Kimmy in the throng of people.

Ron was the first to spot his parents. Molly Weasley's trademark red hair and exuberant arm-waving were not easily missed. Ron sighed.

Harry nudged Ron in the arm. "Hey, look on the bright side, at least Seamus won't be at the Burrow."

"Maybe I'll be able to talk some bleeding sense into Ginny with him out of her sight."

Hermione just had to say _something_, Ginny was her friend, too, and she'd been wholly on Ron's side since this entire Ginny/Seamus situation blew up in Ron's face… quite literally. "Maybe this whole Ginny and Seamus thing isn't all as bad as you think it is, Ron."

Ron goggled at her. "What? How could it not be?"

"Well, it could have been worse."

"Yeah, how?"

Hermione smiled, rather devilishly, if she did say so herself. "It could have been Draco."

Ron shuddered and narrowed his eyes at Hermione as though he was having a go at wandless magic in the hopes of hexing her… but at the very last second he smirked. "You're a pistol, you know that?"

Hermione chuckled and pointed her thumb in Harry's direction, "Best ask if _he_ knows that."

Ron snorted. "Harry? Please, he's fought dragons, should make for good practice for keeping up with you. Kind of think he must be barking if he thinks he can, though."

"You know, I'm standing right here," Harry protested, but his voice was not the slightest bit angry or indignant.

Hermione gave Ron a hug. "Try to have a good time this holiday, all right, Ron? Who knows, maybe by the time classes start up again Ginny will have forgotten all about Seamus."

"Wouldn't that make my Christmas." Ron glanced over at his mother, who had already gathered the rest of her brood about her… all but Ron. "Well, should probably go before it becomes a shout out across the whole bloody train station. Happy Christmas, you two."

"Happy Christmas, Ron," Harry returned and waved as Ron left to join his family.

Hermione turned to Harry and stepped in close so she could lower her voice, even though with the multitude of voices filling the station and Ron already a fair distance away it was unlikely he would have overhead anyway. "I propose we don't even _mention_ the name Seamus Finnegan the rest of this entire holiday."

Harry smiled. "_Brilliant_ idea. I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Hermione quirked a look at him as she turned to her luggage trolley. "I should hope that's not the _only_ reason or I might have to take offense."

"Best not let that happen, I might not be able to handle you," Harry quipped.

Kimmy jumped up on Harry's trunk, next to Hedwig's cage, and looked around from the new vantage point. Though she seemed to be having a very good time, peppy as a dog on a car ride (before realizing it was a trip to the vet's office), Hermione did not doubt for a second that the transfigured house elf was alert to every tiny hint of a threat.

Hermione stood on her tip-toes and craned to search for her parents in the crowd. She saw her father first, decked in the green jumper she'd gotten for him the Christmas before last. Unbidden, that made her grin. Miranda was at Jake's side, scanning the faces of the children disembarking from the train. Her mother spotted them it seemed at the same time Hermione caught sight of her parents, for just then Miranda perked up and waved at Hermione.

"I see Mum and Dad," Hermione said with a tug on Harry's sleeve. "Let's go."

Hermione started toward her parents, already grinning like mad, when Harry snagged her by the elbow. "Wait, Hermione…"

"What?" she turned to find Harry with a very uncertain look on his face. He looked toward Miranda and Jake apprehensively then asked, "Have you told them about… you know, us?"

"Not yet, but we will." She could see Harry was ill at ease with that idea. She had a fair guess why he'd balked and why he was stalling even now. Harry had a few recurring themes where it concerned her parents; it made deciphering the cause of his wary disposition rather simple. She did her best to assuage his concerns before they got the best of Harry's nerves. "Harry, it'll be fine. They're not going to stop liking you just because we're together now."

Harry looked dubious, even looked like he was about to say something, but instead in the end he took a steeling breath and nodded for her to carry on. Hermione pushed her trolley toward her smiling and waving parents. She was sure they wouldn't think any less of Harry now that he was her boyfriend. He was still _Harry_.

"Hermione!" Miranda said jovially when the two teens reached them, "happy Christmas, honey."

Hermione abandoned her trolley to launch herself into Miranda. Mother caught daughter in a tight embrace. "Happy Christmas, Mum!" She gave her mother one last squeeze for good measure and stepped back. Miranda cupped Hermione's face and looked down lovingly at her, then turned to look toward Harry. "Harry, it's wonderful to see you could make it," she beckoned Harry forward with a hand. When Harry complied and came closer, Miranda pulled him into a hug much as she had Hermione.

He looked startled for a moment, but only a moment, then he carefully brought up his arms to tentatively return the hug. "Umm… thank you for inviting me, Missus Granger."

Miranda chuckled, "Don't be silly, dear, we're happy to have you."

"And where's my hug?" Jake asked behind Hermione in a mock-petulant tone of voice. She spun around and wrapped him in a bear hug at once. Jake hugged back and chuckled, "Yeah, you'd forgotten about your old dad, hadn't you?"

Hermione giggled. "Really, Dad."

Miranda released Harry from her hold; he looked a little dazed and confused but in a good sense.

When Hermione and Jake broke apart, Jake offered his hand to Harry. "Harry. You look well. How's school been?"

Harry shook Jake's hand and very briefly glanced over at Hermione. He looked to be rather relieved at the reception he'd gotten so far. She beamed in encouragement, almost longing to say 'see, Harry?'

"Uh, yes, sir. I'm well, and school's… out for Christmas holiday."

Jake laughed and let go of Harry's hand. "Well, I can sooner understand that than our Hermione here who starts talking about going back just as soon as we're in the car leaving King's Cross."

Harry cracked a smile at that.

Miranda touched Harry's shoulder, cocked her head, and looked toward her husband. "Gracious, Jake, I think he's got another inch on him. How are your clothes fitting you, Harry?"

"Fine!" Harry answered swiftly.

Jake barked. "Ha! Come on, son, you and I will see to the baggage, leave the women to catch up a bit," he clapped Harry on the shoulder and steered him away from Miranda and her critical eye. Harry returned to his trolley, gripped the handlebar, but before he started to follow Jake as he pushed Hermione's trolley Harry tugged at the bottom of his pant legs with his trainers, standing on one foot then the other and raking the sole of his shoe down the bottom of his trouser legs, to ensure there was no peek of sock when he started walking.


	42. Chapter 42

Jake Granger liked to think himself a decent chap. His colleagues at work were more his friends than not, he got along well with his mother-in-law, and he had a loving wife and daughter who were his world. He couldn't be a bad bloke to have been so lucky with the people in his life. In addition to all that, he tended to believe he was easy to get along with, and that he could get along with others just as well. All and all, a likeable and liking bloke.

There was only the nagging question of where to fit in one Harry Potter.

Jake had conflicting feelings about the young wizard who attended Hogwarts with his daughter, and Jake was not a person typically torn. He knew whom he liked and whom he did not. It was a simple matter. But Jake discovered, with Harry, things weren't so plain and simple. Nor was he stupid as to the cause for his ambiguity toward Harry; it all came down to Hermione.

On the one hand, Harry was a very nice young man. Soft-spoken most of the time and always well-mannered, though perhaps a great deal of that was shyness, as the boy seemed rather prone to it. He was a sportsman, Jake had learned that early on, and the purportedly talented seeker really knew how to infuse his recounts of Quidditch matches with life and excitement. And Jake noticed that when he was consumed with the telling of a Quidditch match, Harry wasn't quite so quiet or shy. Jake had never heard Harry be anything but kind and courtesy to people; even his dreadfully brusque aunt and uncle at King's Cross were shown more kindness than Jake felt they were due. For someone his age, that kind of restraint should be commended. Miranda was very fond of him, that was clear beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Weeks before the start of Christmas holiday, when Jake was in a good mood knowing his daughter would be coming home soon, Miranda had approached him with the suggestion that they invite Harry to spend the holiday with them. Jake had been blind-sided. Sure, Harry was a consummate houseguest and well liked besides, but Jake had never considered the idea of sharing their family holiday with Hermione's school friend. Not that he was unilaterally opposed to it, but he'd just never thought to consider it. After all, there'd been no owl from Hermione, like there had been last time, asking if she could bring her friend home. He'd said as much to Miranda.

"I suspect they're a bit more than friends by now," Miranda had said with a sagacious smile.

Jake hadn't been ready for that at all. But a little voice in the back of his head told him he should have been.

And therein lay the rub, the other hand to the whole matter. Jake honestly liked Harry, Miranda was well and fully taken with him, and Hermione was downright smitten. The last was what really got underneath Jake's skin and made him squirm. It woke a thing of disquiet in his bones, and part of him had to dislike Harry for it. It was like a paternal writ, necessary and unavoidable that he should object to the notion of a boy taking up his with little girl. Jake genuinely hated that conflicted feeling that arose in him. He didn't care for strife; it made life tedious and stressful. It was much easer to get along with people, and if they were decent enough then mores the better. And Harry was most certainly a kindly, good-hearted young man. Usually, that would be all that Jake required from another person to garner his favorable opinion. Outwardly, there would seem no reason for Jake to find himself torn about the boy. Not unsurprisingly, Miranda had nailed the crux of his issues with Harry in that same conversation about having Harry over for Christmas… the crux that was Hermione.

And Miranda's matter-of-fact remark that, while their little girl was off attending school, she'd turned her eye to fancying boys, and not just any boy, but Harry, nettled him.

Just what made Miranda so certain? There'd been no letters from their daughter professing any manner of 'boyfriend' come into her life… boy, did Jake hate that word. Hermione adored her books and her lessons. She wasn't a typical teenager in that regard. She was an academic, she courted learning. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea of her _dating_.

"Jake, love," Miranda had said in that patient kind of voice when he tried to fight her logic, "I know it's hard to hear this, but our little girl is growing up. She's fifteen; I was near her age when I first fell in love."

Jake did not like that notion one bit.

"And you think that _Harry_… Miri, she's _fifteen_. Don't you think _love_ is a bit strong a word?" He wanted Miranda to tell him yes. "I mean, I'll grant you, they're close, best friends and all that, but she wouldn't _fancy_ Harry."

Miranda had only kissed him softly on the cheek. "She does and has for a long time, dear."

Bugger of it was, Miranda was usually right. He'd married a cracking smart woman (Hermione got her brains from Miranda, that was certain), and Jake knew better than to dismiss anything she said out of hand. Though he might want to ever so terribly, as he did then. He resisted at first, but in the end he had to concede to the truth. His little girl was a young woman, and she'd begun to have grown up feelings that he'd sooner she save for much, much later in life.

Jake had never doubted that Harry probably had some ignoble intentions toward Hermione. He was a teenage boy, and Jake knew only too well how a teenage boy's mind worked. And in the presence of an intelligent, funny, beautiful girl like Hermione… Harry might be chivalrous enough, but he was an adolescent young man and he'd have impure thoughts. He'd just never figured on Hermione being just as bad. Somehow she should be… above all that, better than the poor mooning sods that were thick as flies during the teenage years. But then, Miranda had always said he saw their daughter as unrealistically perfect. Was it such a crime to be so proud of one's child?

The whole notion of Hermione taking a fancy to a bloke sat ill in his stomach for days, as though he'd lost a loved one, and he couldn't rightly say way. Miranda had curled into his side one night and explained it all to him, as she was wont to do.

"Hermione's realizing she can love a man besides her father. It's not an easy thing for a father to admit that he'll have to learn to share his little girl."

"She's fifteen…" Jake retorted, his flailing protest to the whole idea.

"The very age when we might have expected her friendship toward Harry to blossom into something more. If it hadn't been this year, it would have been the next."

"You act as though this was bound to happen," Jake groused.

Miranda had sighed, resigned to the new facet of their young daughter with far more grace than Jake was finding within himself. "Hermione's been taken with Harry since first year, whether she knew it or not. It was in every letter she wrote and every story she told when she was home on holidays. I think the ground was laid for her to develop a crush on him long ago. We should be thankful that Harry had the sense to develop feelings for her, too."

"_Thankful_?"

"You remember how horrible unrequited love was back in those days," Miranda answered simply, with years as a buffer able to look back on those youthful heartbreaks with bittersweet recollection. "And you know how Hermione is… once she's committed her heart to something it's a force of nature to change her. A one-sided crush that had been allowed to build so long would have been awful for her to bear."

Jake couldn't decide how to side on that topic. Yes, Hermione would have been crushed if she cared for someone who didn't care for her, but then again if the boy didn't return Hermione's affections then there was no need to bother with that dreaded 'boyfriend' word.

"And we should count ourselves lucky that Hermione chose Harry," Miranda added.

"How is that?" Jake was a long way from considering his daughter in a relationship with _anyone _'lucky'.

Miranda had smiled at him and said, "Because Hermione could not have found anyone who thinks more highly of her than Harry does."

Despise it though he might, Jake had to confess that point to Miranda. Even Jake could see that Harry thought the world of Hermione. As well he should. Hermione was an absolutely wonderful person, a shining light to anyone who bothered to spend as little as five minutes with her. And it irked Jake when his own certitude turned against him. 'Harry _does_ see that,' he had to acknowledge with a foul taste on the back of his tongue. He might not have been the sharpest eye in the crow's nest, but he'd seen that much when Harry was staying over with them during summer holiday.

"Give him a chance, Jake," Miranda had pleaded then. "For Hermione's sake, try to like him."

"But I _do_… I mean, I did… I liked him when he was just her friend, I had no problem with that, but _boyfriend_… well, that's just such an ugly word."

"Best get used it to, because Hermione's not a child anymore. She'll have a boyfriend, and one day a fiancé, and one day a husband if life is good to her."

"Please, I can only take so much," Jake protested, his chest a cage of ache, "you don't presume to say that _Harry_ will be all those things?"

Miranda had smiled in that wise, knowing way she had that made Jake think he had to be one of the dumbest blokes in England. "Perhaps he will. And for that very reason we best welcome Harry to join us for Christmas."

"How so?" At that point, Jake merely wanted to know why it was so critical.

"Because the truth is that one day Hermione won't pick us anymore. A girl's parents will win out in her heart over all others for only so long. Eventually, her boyfriend will become more important.

"If we don't make it clear that Harry's welcome in our home… we may start to lose her piece by piece. If she's fallen in love with Harry, and I'd wager she has, then a choice between us and him won't play to our favor.

"If we turn Harry away I fear we'll be turning her away, too. I don't want to start the chain of events that means we lose our daughter. She'd probably visit now and then at first, then it would dwindle to coming by only on holidays, and before long we'd see nothing more of her than an occasional post."

"Not Hermione," Jake said firmly. "She wouldn't do that."

"She already has," Miranda said plainly. When Jake frowned, she spoke gently. "We didn't have her here with us last Christmas because she stayed at Hogwarts… with Harry."

"Bollocks," Jake grumbled.

"But if Harry's invited I'm certain Hermione will come home."

"So Harry's the cross we must bear to have our daughter?" Jake countered sourly. It was the principle of the idea that bothered him more than the prevailing theme of Harry coming to their home for Christmas.

Miranda looked quietly at Jake. "Is he such a cross? He's gentle and kind, he has a good heart, and you've seen how good he is at making Hermione laugh and smile."

"You'd almost prefer Hermione take up with this Harry chap for the rest of her life, wouldn't you?" He wasn't angry, just blunt, because all the ways Miranda had described Harry were accurate. Miranda had taken a real shine to Harry, and the part Jake hated to admit was that a great many of the reasons behind Miranda's fondness for Harry were not lost on him, either. He'd liked Harry for many of those same reasons. A part of him stubbornly continued to like Harry for those reasons, even as the father in him riled at the boy moving in on his little girl. Were it not for the contention point that was Hermione, Jake could easily like Harry without reservation. It made it all so much harder, in his estimations.

"Maybe I do," Miranda had answered. "He's been good for her so far, I don't really need to tell you in how many ways. He's been a wonderful friend to her when we'd begun to fear Hermione would never connect with someone her own age. You know, at times… I think I can even see myself one day coming to love him as though he were my own son."

Jake's eyes had widened at that pronouncement. Miranda was not one to blithely throw around such predictions. She had a very loving heart, that was without question, but not one prone to cavalier attachments. She didn't shower that level of affection on people who came into her life; she wasn't predisposed to that kind of fickleness. She could be very fond of people, friends and colleagues, but that was far from love. She gave her love intensely but sparingly. It's what made it so special.

"And I think you could, too," Miranda said earnestly, "if you give him the chance."

Jake had thought several days on that. It had haunted him, if truth be told. Harry part of the family. It was strange to imagine. For so long it had been him, Miranda, and Hermione. But Miranda had the right of it. Just because Jake didn't care for the idea of Hermione with a hormonal teenage boyfriend didn't mean he wanted her to be alone the rest of her life. And he knew it would be so dangerously easy for Hermione to be alone. She turned to her books and her inner world to such exclusion that most of life could pass her by without her knowing it. In her first year at Hogwarts, when she'd written them and told them about the two friends she'd made, they'd breathed a sighed of relief to see that her life wasn't still set on that solitary path that had been her destination practically since she learned how to talk… and chose to talk to adults as opposed to other children.

But he'd seen how Harry drew her out of that self-imposed, leather-bound exile. She was a different person around him. She was happier.

And for that, Jake decided in the end, he could deal with Harry in their lives.

The next day, he'd told Miranda to go ahead and mail the kids inviting them home for Christmas.

By the time he and his wife had gone to pick them up at King's Cross, he was even a little more amenable to the idea. He'd had a lot of time to think, and not without a little help from Miranda to coax the subject. There were things to be said for Harry that threw their lot in his favor. He _was_ kind, that much was true. He would never be cruel or mean to Hermione. Harry was always polite to him and Miranda. He cared about their opinions, which was more than Jake could have said for some of his own attitude toward his girlfriends' parents when he was that age. That was good; it meant Harry would take them into consideration if any silly, half-baked ideas like him and Hermione running off into the sunset together came to their addled, lovesick brains. He definitely thought Hermione had hung the moon as far as respect and adoration went. Honestly, Jake couldn't say he'd been as respectful or as properly doting to his own teenage girlfriends before Miranda came into his life. Harry wasn't likely to get cross with Hermione or try to order her around. If anything, Harry would probably obey Hermione to a bloody fault and do anything she asked of him. Which was just the sort of bloke Hermione ought to have, because his girl deserved that kind of devotion. And though he felt guilty to admit it, the fact that Harry would sooner be rid of his family was a boon, because it meant that _if_ Harry and Hermione by some _wild_ chance ended up married some day in the _distant_ future (which Jake was still not willing to concede out of hand), he and Miranda would never have to fight the in-laws for the couple. Every holiday, every special occasion, every whimsical vacation or impromptu outing, Hermione would be there, albeit with Harry in tow. That wasn't so bad, really. And he and Harry might even go to some football games together, or even a Quidditch match or two. Jake could see that being a good time, and Harry _did_ have quite a grasp of sports. It'd be nice to have another bloke with whom to talk guy-stuff.

Besides, this was all based upon Miranda's assumptions about this newly-changed status in their friendship. Harry and Hermione might not even be boyfriend and girlfriend at all. He wouldn't let himself get in a fretful state over nothing, and if it turned out Miranda's instincts were on the mark… well, as Miranda had said herself, Hermione could have done a lot worse than Harry Potter. He wasn't good enough for her, but no bloke ever would be. Jake would have to settle in any case, and he could settle for Harry better than most others.

At King's Cross, Miranda had hugged Harry same as she had their daughter, and Jake shook the boy's hand and had been very well-behaved. With the pair of them standing in front of him, he admitted that it wasn't so bad. Hermione looked more beautiful every day, more and more like her mother, and Harry wasn't half the bashful, reticent boy he'd been when they met him at the start of summer holiday. He was more comfortable around them now. Jake was glad for that; it bothered Miranda to have Harry so twitchy. She hated that it said so many unsavory things about his early childhood.

They'd piled into the car, driven home with the kids in the back (Hermione giving them a recount of their midterms, as expected), and it was all right. Nothing to really set off Jake's radar as far as Harry and Hermione's predicted 'relationship' was concerned. They weren't acting appreciably different from the way they had acted around each other previously. They looked just as they had during the summer, though Harry was taller and Hermione's hair longer. At the house, Miranda fixed them lunch first thing, and they'd sat down together at the table. Miranda chatted classes with Hermione; Jake got the highlights of some of the latest Gryffindor Quidditch matches. When lunch was over, and the kids retreated to their rooms with their trunks to settle in, Jake was feeling pretty good about everything. Miranda had been premature to think Hermione and Harry were dating. Christmas might be merry after all.

Jake joined his wife in the kitchen as she was washing the dishes from lunch. He stepped up behind her and when she glanced over her shoulder at him, a smile on her face, he smiled back.

"You saw it, too?" she asked.

He nodded, in a good mood. "Yes."

Miranda put aside a plate on the drying rack. "Harry looked scared half to death, the poor boy, but knowing Hermione I imagine we'll have the announcement before the end of the day."

Now he was confused. "Huh?"

"Now remember to be nice about it when they tell us. Harry's a good kid. Just keep in mind how my father used to scare you," she said with a teasing smile.

"Your dad didn't scare me any more than he would have scared any bloke with sense, he had those horseman's hands, you know, but just a moment… what are you talking about?"

Miranda turned to face him and favored him with a sympathetic look, "Oh, Jake, it was obvious. They hardly ate any lunch, I'm sure their stomachs were all in knots. Hermione barely finished a sentence without getting a terribly distracted look on her face. Didn't you see how they kept looking at each other during lunch?"

"No." Really, he hadn't. He remembered Quidditch and feeling relief that Miranda had been off the mark for once. How did Miranda pick up on these things? He wondered if perhaps she wasn't just a little bit witch herself.

Miranda gave him a peck on the cheek to placate his recently demolished cheerful mood. "Be happy for Hermione, love. She's at a wonderful point in her life. You remember what those years were like, don't you?" Her smile then made him remember those years all the better.

But still… "I remember being a rutting teenage boy with very off-color thoughts toward the opposite sex."

"Yes, well, I have an idea as to that."

Jake frowned. "What do you—" but before he could question Miranda further they were interrupted by Hermione's voice. "Mum, Dad."

Jake turned and his heart broke just a little. He knew at that instant that Miranda had been right all along. About everything Hermione and Harry.

Hermione came into the kitchen leading Harry by the hand… or rather, almost dragging him. Harry looked frightfully pale and his hold on Hermione's hand was a death-grip. For half a second, Jake felt sorry for the boy. He'd had his fair share of 'breaking the news to the girl's parents' when he was young, and they'd been nerve-wracking without exclusion. Meeting Miranda's parents had been the most nervous he'd been in his entire life… except for maybe when he was asking Miranda for her hand in marriage. Whether he cared to or not, he could relate to Harry's predicament.

Hermione, in contrast, was determined and resolute. She had a stubborn set to her jaw, a flinty hardness in her eyes. It was immovable, pugnacious Hermione to a fault. When she was in such a state she could not be swayed. It was small wonder Harry looked so scared but had accompanied her for the 'announcement' just the same.

Jake cast Miranda a sidelong look, and the light in her eyes seemed to say gently 'I told you' when she met his gaze.

Hermione came to a stop in the kitchen a few paces in front of her parents, Harry halting just behind her shoulder. Jake was struck, because now there was no denying a new closeness between the teens, by how Hermione was smaller than Harry but just then she undeniably seemed to shield him. There was a fierceness to her presence that dared even her parents to hurt Harry as he stood behind her, his hand entwined with hers. Jake knew his little girl could be a lion when it came to defending things dear to her, but to see that passion stirred to safeguard a boy… it was sobering. And it was vindication of Miranda's earlier assertions, the ones Jake had tried so hard to dismiss. If it came down to her parents and Harry, a choice between them, Hermione had already made hers. Maybe she wouldn't follow that final decision for years to come, but it would be only an eventuality postponed.

Fortunately, Jake and Miranda would never force her to make that choice; they were willing to make room for Harry in their family. Still, it was eye-opening to see the truth of it in front of them.

Kimmy, in her house elf form, came trotting into the kitchen after the pair of teenagers. She wore a pair of green boxers with a pine tree pattern on them that twinkled with multicolored lights just like a Christmas tree. She scrambled up on to the counter, turned, and sat with her feet hanging over the edge like it was a front row seat to a show. She seemed the most unconcerned individual in the entire room.

Hermione stood a moment and looked between her parents, as though trying to gauge their mood. Harry was still as death at her side, and nearly as pallid. He was looking everywhere but at Jake and Miranda.

"Mum, Dad… Harry and I have something that we need to tell you."

'Here it comes,' Jake thought.

"What's that, honey?" Miranda asked, and she even sounded unaware of the bombshell about to be dropped in their laps.

Hermione glanced back at Harry, and if Jake wasn't mistaken she seemed to draw even more courage from him. It was like staring at the sun, too brilliant to bear but too powerful to ignore.

For a brief second, Hermione's stony expression of certitude cracked to offer Harry a tiny smile. She looked back to her parents and said, "Harry and I just wanted you to know that he and I have started dating."

At that, Harry looked up and met Miranda's gaze first. The boy might be scared witless, but he wasn't about to look anything less than Hermione's equal in the moment of reckoning. Jake had to credit him that resolve. The look Harry next turned to Jake was a little less confident, but all the same he looked Jake square in the eye. That said a lot to Jake.

Miranda broke the silence first. "Well, that's quite an announcement. But as long as you're both happy, then we're happy for you."

They'd expected something more along the lines of fire and brimstone, to read their faces. At least Harry had. He looked absolutely flabbergasted that Miranda was taking the news so well. Hermione had to fend off a smile… it was plain to see that immediate acceptance of her relationship with Harry had elated her. Jake had to concede once more to Miranda's wisdom in matters of the heart. She'd managed to make a potentially nerve-wracking moment for their daughter a reason to love them all the more.

Miranda turned calmly to Kimmy and said, "Kimmy? I wonder, do you think I could ask a favor of you?"

Kimmy nodded at once, her ears wiggling with the motion of her head. "Of course, Missus Granger, what can Kimmy do?"

"Well, as it seems we have a couple of love-struck teenagers in the house, and Jake and I will be at work for most of the day, do you think you could keep an eye on them for us and make sure nothing too inappropriate happens?"

'Miranda, you're nothing short of genius,' Jake thought with an inward smile.

"Mum!" Hermione squeaked, a great departure from the brave face she'd been parading thus far. Harry's cadaverous hue gave way to beet red.

Kimmy grinned broadly, imperfect, off-white teeth bared. "Kimmy would be happy to make sure nothing naughty happens."

"_Kimmy_!" Hermione said in dismay, as though betrayed to have the house elf side with Miranda and Jake, then she turned to her mother and said, "Mum, _really_."

Miranda smiled warmly. "Just humor us, honey… I don't think it's asking too much since we are letting your boyfriend stay over."

Hermione looked mortified, and Harry just a shade shy of that, but it was he who said, "You're right, Missus Granger."

Jake stepped forward then. "Harry? Can I have a word with you? In private?"

Harry looked like he'd rather run naked through the midwinter streets, but he nodded. "Yes, sir." He looked at Hermione a moment then let go her hand. Hermione looked like she would chew off her own arm to be able to go with them, but this was a strictly father-suitor discussion.

Jake led Harry away toward the library, leaving Hermione to her mother.

When they entered the library, Harry was horribly tense and very wary. Jake never thought to be regarded as though he were a dangerous wild animal. It was well that Harry afforded him that much, though. Jake liked to think he could still have some say in his daughter's life, and Harry's concern for his reaction would suggest that he did.

"Have a seat," Jake bade to the younger man.

Harry hesitated then went to one of the chairs at the library table. Jake sat down across from him. He regarded the boy closely. Harry was a picture of nerves, but he looked Jake straight in the eye. For all the bumbling and shy he seemed to exude a lot of the time, there was an inarguable streak of bravery in him, Jake thought.

"Don't be so wired, I'm not here to tear into you."

Harry looked doubtful but he nodded. "Yes, sir."

"To be honest, I've never been on this end of these conversations, so this will be new for both of us.

"I love Hermione very dearly and her happiness is of great importance to me. I couldn't suffer her to be hurt in any way, so tell me honestly, Harry, are you toying with her?"

Harry flinched as though gravely insulted. "Absolutely not, Mister Granger."

Really, Jake had expected as much. Harry hardly seemed the type to be that cruel, least of all to Hermione. "Good to hear that. See to it that it stays that way. I might not be a powerful wizard, but if you break Hermione's heart I'll break your legs."

"I'd never hurt her."

Jake tapped his index finger against the tabletop and let Harry sweat a little. "No, I don't believe you would. I'm not trying to scare you away from her, Harry, don't think that. You're a nice fellow, and you seem to care about my daughter a great deal. If that's the case, then I don't have a problem. Just make her happy and I'll not have any complaints against you or your relationship with Hermione."

"I'll do everything in my power to make sure she's happy, sir," Harry replied.

'For a wizard like you,' Jake thought, 'that might be quite a lot.' "Good, then. Well, I suppose we should get back out there before Hermione comes beating the door down."

Harry smiled because he, too, knew that wasn't far from the truth.

Jake moved to rise but paused. "One more thing, Harry. I have to wonder, do you have any idea what a treasure you've found in Hermione?"

The light that flickered in Harry's eyes told Jake his answer, as well as the sudden softness of his smile and the gravity of his words. "I've a fair idea."

Jake really thought that the boy just might.

They both rose and moved toward the door. Jake clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder and said, "Don't forget that, and you and I will be just fine."

If that was the extent of Jake's demands, then it seemed to leave Harry greatly relieved. He relaxed noticeably in Jake's company as they left the library to rejoin the women.


	43. Chapter 43

She had nowhere to go. His body pressed into hers, pinned her solidly to the wall behind her as his hands circled her hips, slid between her and the stone at her back, drawing her insatiably closer to the madness that she'd awakened. She bent one knee to hook her leg around his, her calf and inner leg raking up toward his hip. He let his hand follow the angle of her thigh. He suckled at her neck, the warm haven beneath her hair that called so to him, like siren's song made flesh. Her skin was hot and sweet on his lips. Her sigh in his ear was even sweeter. He pushed against her, wild with the way it made their bodies crush together. Her hands were sliding between them, tugging at his shirt. Then his shirt was gone, and her fingers were leaving white impressions over his back and shoulders. She clung to him hungrily. She moaned when his hands moved. And then her shirt was gone, and it was skin touching skin, heat on heat. He dipped to taste her chest, inebriate himself on her body, and her deft fingers went to his belt.

A soft click tore Harry from the land of dreams and he lay quietly in bed, still in a state from the images that had been dancing in his mind's eye. He listened for what had torn him from his slumber and it was more a sense of another person in the room than any true noise.

He roused the sleeping jaguar just enough to know by smell alone that his visitor was Hermione. Perhaps being jarred from sleep wasn't so terrible after all.

It was edging toward noon judging by how rested he felt. He'd slept in. His bed at the Granger house was sinfully comfortable, so much better than the hand-me-down mattresses he'd always inherited from Dudley with a huge dip in the middle where most of the massive boy's weight had been borne and spotted with multiple food stains and their accompanying funny smells. It was better than the standard beds of Hogwarts that were not supposed to encourage sleeping in, lest a student miss their morning classes.

Harry knew Hermione was padding toward his bed, but he kept his eyes closed and pretended he'd not realized she was there. He was curious to learn what exactly she'd do. The mattress dipped and jostled as she climbed up on it. Harry was having to fight the impulse to smile. Then it was her voice, directly above him.

"I know you're awake," she said at last.

Harry gave in, smiled, and opened his eyes. She was on her hands and knees over him, one hand on either side of him so she was hovering right over him, near enough that he could make out her features without his glasses. She was in her pajamas still as well. Her hair was loose and falling over her shoulders, tickling his cheeks and making him chuckle.

Hermione grinned back at him. "Morning."

Harry batted her hair away, only to have it brush against his nose. "What time is it?"

"About ten-thirty. Mum and Dad are gone."

The devil on Harry's shoulder thought that that was a very important detail… and an exciting one. Harry tried his best to push that thought away. "Morning… you know, I was going to have a lie in. I'd been looking forward to it all week." His intent was playful, even if he pretended to protest her waking him.

Hermione beamed, fully aware that Harry was funning with her. "Thought you might. Got room for one more?"

His eyebrows rose. Then he lifted up one end of the covers in invitation.

Hermione quickly wriggled in beside him and snuggled down at his side. Harry tucked the covers snug around them both and had to bite the inside of his cheek when Hermione slid her arm over his torso, turned on her side to partially drape over him, and moved one of her legs to tangle with his… and in the process came in contact with the evidence of his rather vivid dream. But he didn't have to be embarrassed about that with Hermione, she'd proven remarkably unbothered by Harry's 'physiological responses'. True to form, she didn't pull away or make a disgusted noise… instead he felt her smile into his chest where her face was pressed against him.

It didn't help his problem, in fact it was fair to say it made his problem worse, but there was good and bad with that. Such was the torment that was Hermione Granger. He snaked one arm underneath the curve of her neck and crooked it at the elbow to rest his hand lightly on her back. Absolutely blissful torture.

"Can I ask you something, Harry?" she said without lifting her head to look him in the eye.

"Sure."

"Does that just happen, or do you have to dream… certain things?"

Harry's stomach flipped. They never really talked about that, and he supposed that fact should make him dreadfully uncomfortable, but he found he didn't mind Hermione's curiosity.

"You mean in the morning? Because I imagine it's fairly obvious how that happens during the day." She would know all too well. Hermione had played with that razor edge of sanity, dangling Harry over the edge countless times once they'd become a couple, and Harry was reasonably sure she did it on purpose. It was the curiosity in her that could not be vanquished. She wanted to see what would make him react to her… which she learned soon enough was just about anything and everything. He was pretty certain she was immensely pleased to discover that she need only make the barest of efforts to play him like a harp. He was just ecstatic that that sort of thing would _please_ Hermione, that his responding to her would be seen as a good thing.

"Yeah. I know it happens to guys, but I never knew it if was just a… you know, on its own kind of thing."

"Well, for me, it's usually a certain kind of dream."

Hermione's fingers were tracing the seam of his shirt sleeve absently. "You were dreaming?" There was the slightest hint of the minx in her voice, and he really ought to know to watch himself by now when that particular side of Hermione showed itself.

"Uh huh."

"What were you dreaming about?" Her voice was low, throaty and intoxicating. She was driving him crazy. Positively stark raving mad.

"You."

Hermione squeezed him like a giant teddy bear, she shivered, and Harry groaned when it registered in every nerve ending he possessed.

Hermione drew her head from his chest, propped herself on her elbow to look down at his face. Harry studied her expression. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes looked nearly black. She looked incredible in a ruffled, morning way. "You dream about me?" she asked, sounding honestly moved by the admission.

'Only all the time,' he thought miserably, but as an answer he said, "Yeah."

Hermione smiled, lovely and enchanting, then bent down and kissed him on the jaw line. Then she kissed him again, slow and feather-light. She peppered little kisses toward his ear, where her breath was the softest sound he'd ever known. He reached up, moved her wild hair aside, lifted his head from his pillow, and nipped at her neck. Hermione made a noise, somewhere between a whimper and a chuckle, and her fingers splayed over one side of his chest. She let her supporting elbow slowly slip, settled her upper body at an angle atop his, and he felt the shape of her breasts on his chest through the twin layers of pajamas. She wasn't wearing a bra. Merlin, she'd kill him, he knew it.

But he must have been one suicidal guy, because he drew her closer, one hand still wonderfully tangled in her hair, the other tracing up her arm to her shoulder and back. Hermione trembled as he nibbled and kissed at her throat, and one of her hands smoothed over his waist, so desperately, unbearably close to the flash point of all this insanity.

She had just started to move her hand up under the hem of his shirt, her fingers had only just danced against the tingling skin of his stomach, when there was a pointed "Ahem" from the door.

The two teens broke apart to look and saw Kimmy standing in the doorway of the bedroom, wearing a pair of rose-covered boxers and a very 'tisk tisk' look on her face. Harry had never wished Kimmy ill before that split-second.

"Kimmy!" Hermione breathed a greeting first.

"You knows Missus Granger wouldn't be liking this, Miss Granger and Mister Harry Potter."

Hermione blushed fiery red and moved away from Harry. "Honestly, Kimmy, we were just… we weren't…" she glanced at Harry's face. Harry just watched her to see how she intended to handle Kimmy's intrusion. Hermione seemed to relent to their compromising state and sagged. "Well, perhaps we were getting just a _little_ carried away."

"Best cure for that's to get out of bed!" Kimmy said cheerfully.

Hermione grumbled and extricated herself from Harry's sheets. Kimmy, seeing that her work was done, gave a satisfied nod and trotted off into the depths of the house looking quite untroubled for having spoiled Harry's good time so thoroughly. Hermione was still flushed as she brushed back her hair, still looking quite enticing to all of Harry's overwrought senses.

"Well, um… getting close to lunchtime anyway," Hermione said after a moment. "Would you like to go to the park later today? It's quite lovely at Christmas; they string lights on some of the trees, and if the clouds are in they might even be lit by early afternoon."

"Err… sure… sounds great." Or it might, later, when he wasn't still painfully reminded of what his morning had consisted of so far. Hermione in his dreams and then in his bed, and the activities for both shockingly similar. It was probably the first instance of Harry being cursed for being so lucky.

Hermione moved toward the door to leave the room, paused, and glanced back at him. "You coming, Harry?"

'Oh boy,' he thought. "Um… yeah… give me a couple minutes."

It took a second, during which her lips pursed and her brow crinkled. Then Hermione's gaze turned positively… feral. It hit Harry in the stomach… and sank lower. 'Maybe just a minute if this keeps up,' he lamented silently.

She was too damn smart for his good. "Oh," was all she said.

Now she was just teasing him. "Just go already," he waved her away.

Hermione smiled devilishly and left him to it. Ron had the right of it; she was a pistol. Who knew _that_ had been inside Hermione all this time? Innocent, studious, focused Hermione Granger, constant haunt of libraries and top scorer of tests, a wily seductress.

He liked it.

* * *

Hermione's head was in the clouds, and for someone as grounded as Hermione Granger that did not happen often. Her mother had even commented during lunch that she was looking a bit 'dreamy'. That had warranted a quick look from Miranda, quickly followed by a whispered conference with Kimmy, the 'naughtiness look-out'. Harry had hummed most of the time he was cooking lunch, effected for the better by Hermione's mood.

She was still high on the fact that Harry had dreams about her… _those_ kinds of dreams.

Logically, one might think she would expect him to. She was his girlfriend, after all, and they'd snogged a fair bit. Only made sense that Harry's unconscious mind would take it to the next level, what with him being a teenage boy and all.

But, in fact, Hermione hadn't thought on it. And she hadn't because she knew if she did allow herself to think on it, she would decide that Harry probably dreamed about other girls in _those_ dreams.

She didn't doubt his devotion. He was exclusive to her, she knew him better than to question that. But she also knew she wasn't half as pretty as most girls. Harry couldn't really be held responsible for dreaming about being with someone prettier. It stung to think he would, she privately owned up to that, but she knew it wouldn't be fair to blame him for what he did in dreams.

Of course, she had some rather… intense dreams herself that included him, and her, the two of them together. But then, it wasn't really the same on any level. Hermione didn't have the same problem Harry did; she had a perfectly good-looking, attractive partner to dream about. And she had to take into account that girls' brains were just wired differently… she'd be more apt, even in dreams, to factor in the aspect of emotional attachment. That wouldn't necessarily be true for Harry. Boys were psychologically built to think more in terms of purely physical, visual aspects. For that, she'd sooner expect Harry to have erotic dreams about Cho Chang than her.

She decided it didn't matter, because no matter what Harry might do when he was dreaming, it was her that he woke up and kissed and held and cared about. She was happy for that.

This morning, however… she'd actually been curious about the so-called 'morning wood'. Sometimes, the way it was made out to seem, it was as though boys and girls were from entirely different planets. She felt comfortable enough with Harry to ask. She _never_ thought she'd hear him say that he dreamt about her the way she always assumed he dreamt about Cho. _Her_. Plain, nothing-special-to-look-at Hermione. That _she_ was the reason he woke up in an aroused state.

She wouldn't hold Harry's dreamscape philandering against him, but it seemed she was content to give him credit for making her the girl of his dreams, in a manner of speaking. Every time she looked at him she wanted to kiss him breathless.

'It's just as well we're out in the cold,' she thought with a sense of embarrassment. It was helping to combat the heat that kept stealing over her cheeks and coiling in the pit of her stomach.

After Miranda left to return to work, she and Harry had dressed and left for the park, as they previously discussed. They were currently walking side by side, unrushed, hands entwined, not saying a word. Kimmy was weaving around them in a sloppy satellite orbit as they went. Fitting, as Hermione was beyond the atmosphere with how good her mood was today.

Hermione gave Harry's hand a random squeeze. She smiled stupidly when he squeezed back. She used to think so much of Harry when they were just friends, and when she first developed a crush on him of course she thought a great deal more of him. Harry was a very special person, after all, with qualities rare in many other people. But as his girlfriend… it was more than she'd ever imagined. If nothing else in her life ever went right, at least she was lucky enough to have this.

They arrived at the park to find it less populated with children than last time when it was summer. The chill had chased them indoors. There were a few hardy youngsters on the swings, as though the rushing wind couldn't hope to freeze them out of play, and parents at the benches trying to wrestle squirming children into additional layers of clothes. The trees along the paved walkway were strung with lights, as they were every year, and they were turned on as Hermione had predicted, but the day was bright enough that the limply hanging strands of bulb-infested electrical cords looked more an eyesore than magical; they needed the night to unveil their splendor. But it was all magical to Hermione today.

By the time they reached their bench under the naked maple tree, Hermione's nose was red, her cheeks prickly in the winter air, and the only extremity that wasn't partially numb from the cold was the hand holding Harry's.

Rather than sit on the bench, Hermione turned to regard Harry. His breath was an intermittent white cloud in front of his face, and his features were similarly reddened by the nip in the air. But the grey of the sky made his hair all the blacker, and the cold somehow made his eyes impossibly blue. But more than that, there was a calm about him. He looked at ease. The same unconcern that had shined in his eyes when he smiled up at her that morning.

She wished she knew the secret to keeping that untroubled air about him always.

"What?" he finally asked to her unspoken scrutiny.

Hermione untangled her hand from his, stepped into him, and put her arms around him in a hug, without speaking so much as a word. His body was wonderfully warm and smelled so good, like safe harbor and home all in one.

If he was surprised by her action, and it _was_ a really unexpected thing to do on her part, his surprise lasted only a few seconds. Then he brought his arms up and put them around her. Hermione was completely happy.

"You're good at this, you know," she said after a time standing in the park held in his arms.

"At what?" he asked without moving away from her.

"Being a boyfriend."

Harry was quiet a moment. "I think I'm good at being your boyfriend."

Hermione chuckled. He'd proven her point spectacularly. But maybe he was right more than just saying the right thing. Taking into account Harry's upbringing, she'd expected him to be a bit more of a mess when it came to relationships. He might not really nail a 'healthy relationship' as it was widely accepted on his first go at courting, if ever at all. When she discovered she felt things more than friendship for Harry, she concluded that she could be content with a less-than-perfect relationship, were she ever to date him (which she never anticipated happening, anyway) because Harry was worth it. But their relationship had been nearly flawless once they'd made the decision to embark upon it. And maybe it _was_ because it was with her, his best friend for years. They knew each other so well already, it was only a slight shift to take it to being boyfriend and girlfriend. There need not be new, extraordinary demands on Harry; Hermione wouldn't expect anything more than what he'd always been.

Hermione burrowed deeper against his chest, almost fit to purr, and she felt Harry's torso jerk as he silently chuckled at something.

"What?" she asked, still nestled against him.

"Nothing." There was humor in his voice, blessed Harry joy, understated though it was when it made it as far as his lips.

She pulled away from the hug enough to look up into his face. Her arms were still looped around his waist; she wasn't quite ready to let him go. He had a strange amusement glittering in his eyes and toying with the corners of his mouth. "What nothing? Come on, tell me."

Harry gave a lop-sided smile. "It's stupid." And it was doing a fair job of embarrassing him. Now she was dying to know what had crossed his mind.

"Honestly, Harry, I'm sure it's not stupid. And if it is… well, it's me. I won't laugh."

Harry studied her a moment, then he took one arm away from her to bring his hand up and brush back her hair from her face. His fingers ended up tangled in her curly locks. She really liked it when he did that.

"Just… when we're like this, you know, hugging and stuff, my stomach gets all… flip-floppy."

Hermione smiled sweetly. She had the same stomach flutters around him, not to mention the snitch in her chest and the racing of her heart. It was the way her body let her know she was in love. Stood to reason Harry's body would speak a similar language.

"And I know what it means now, but thing is… well, I mean, it just hit me that my stomach's done that around you for a while now. You know, before we decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend it did that."

Hermione grinned. "Mine did, too."

Harry blinked, as though he'd not thought that she could have such a reaction to him as he did to her, then he smiled. And it was beautiful. And then they were kissing. Not passionately, but softly and tenderly.

They may have continued to kiss forever, Hermione wouldn't know, because they were pulled from each other by a growl.

Hermione looked down to see Kimmy growling menacingly at something to the right. Hermione followed Kimmy's gaze and started to see Belinda Hernandez a few benches over from theirs, where the ringing trees and seats curved to enclose the park. Hermione tensed reflexively. She almost looked around for Grace, as the two were always a matched set of tormentors, but her eye locked on Belinda when the state of the girl registered. Rather than the arrogant, haughty beauty with the world at her slender fingertips, she was hunched down on the bench, braced feebly against the wind. Her dark hair was flowing around her, and when it was whipped out of the way of her face Hermione was shocked to see Belinda was crying.

That was almost too bizarre for Hermione, student of a witchcraft and wizardry school, to comprehend. She couldn't conceive of a Belinda Hernandez reduced to tears like a normal, feeling human being. But she was, crying and hiccupping.

And her unearthly beauty made her tears look mythically tragic.

What happened? Had Grace been killed? Was that why the other half of the mean team was gone and the survivor weeping alone in the park? Belinda might not have it in her to care about boys' feelings, or the feelings of those she tormented, but maybe she had enough heart to grieve the death of the likes of Grace. They had been inseparable ever since grade school, after all.

"Oh, great," Harry grumbled when he, too, followed Kimmy's gaze.

"I wonder what's wrong," Hermione mumbled.

Harry grunted ambivalence.

Hermione reluctantly withdrew from Harry's hold. "I'm going to see if she's all right."

"Seriously?" Harry asked.

Hermione frowned. "I'll be right back."

As she approached Belinda, the sound of her sobs filled the winter air. They were enough to make the gray of the skies dole and dreary where just a moment ago Hermione had been so content under the expanse. Belinda was oblivious to Hermione's arrival at her side until Hermione said, "Belinda?"

Belinda started, looked up, and she looked a terrible mess. Eyes red and puffy, nose runny, expression twisted in grief… it made her just like anyone else. She wasn't the unimaginable beauty with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Granger," she said… then looked away. "What do you want?"

"Are you okay?"

"Like you care."

"Where's Grace?"

Belinda tensed. "Don't talk to me about that… that… back-stabbing tramp."

Hermione tentatively sat down next to the older girl. "What happened?"

Belinda blew her nose, and it sounded just as disgusting and unattractive as when anyone else did it. She held her composure a moment, almost a melancholy repose, then she broke down sobbing again. "She knew… he was _mine_… she knew I… she didn't care! Shagged him like some… like… He was different! How could she do that to me? She was supposed to be _my friend_!"

Hermione put together what had probably happened, though she couldn't rightly believe it. Belinda Hernandez, the emotional harpy, had gone and lost her heart to a boy. She'd made the mistake of falling for one of her prey… and Grace, apparently, had been eager to play the same old games as always with Belinda's paramour.

"I'm sorry…" Hermione said carefully.

"What kind of friend does that?!" Belinda cried. Then her face screwed angrily. "How could _he_ do that! He said he cared about me… but he _slept_ with her! And he wasn't even… even… _sorry_!"

Hermione had to think that maybe Belinda had met her counterpart of the male gender, a womanizing hunk… and had been burned. Thing of it was, Hermione didn't feel too terribly sorry for Belinda's predicament. She'd left many boys in the same heartbroken mess that she was in now. It was a strange justice of its own for Belinda to feel the kind of anguish she'd so long inflicted upon others.

"I don't understand…" Belinda whimpered, and Hermione thought that she probably honestly didn't understand. She'd never had reason to try before.

Hermione weighed her potential words a moment, then leaned just barely closer. "I think, sooner or later, you were bound to find some bloke who wouldn't play your game like you wanted him to."

Belinda looked up at Hermione, for a moment furious… then she just wilted on the bench. She hung her head morosely. "But… how else would you go about it?"

It never occurred to Hermione that the cat-and-mouse games Belinda had loved to play were the only way she knew to interact with boys. For the first time it made Belinda a truly sad, pitiful creature.

"Not all men are as lack-witted as you think, Belinda. The ones that are worth it aren't going to be taken in by tricks… not in the long-run, anyway."

Belinda looked up at Hermione, seemed to really see her for the first time, then her eyes settled on a point beyond Hermione's shoulder. Hermione turned to see that Belinda was watching Harry, who'd inevitably drawn closer to them, worried Belinda would upset Hermione. He looked positively primed to jump in and give Belinda what she had coming to her if she started getting disagreeable.

But the only tears today would be Belinda's.

"I… Harry, right?" Belinda asked faintly.

Hermione looked back at the weeping girl. "Yeah." It was a strange reversal of roles for Hermione, of the two, to be the one with a guy waiting on the fringe.

Belinda regarded Hermione closely, an odd, introspective expression on her beautiful features. "You know, I… well, I always thought, when it came to boys, that I was smarter than you."

'I know you did, and for the longest time, I thought you were, too,' Hermione thought, but instead she gave a shrug. "I just never saw them the same way you did. As… playthings. Conquests."

Belinda pinched her lips in thought and dropped her gaze to her lap. She seemed to mull that remark over with great care. After a moment she glanced back up and looked toward Harry. A wounded smile twitched at her perfect mouth. "He wants you."

Hermione looked back toward Harry and saw him fidgeting, his hands in his pockets and his attention on them. He wasn't even being subtle about it. Hermione didn't need Belinda's translation of boy-language to know that Harry was anxious for her to come back to him.

She looked back toward Belinda. "Are you going to be all right?"

Belinda gave a shrug. Hermione didn't know what else to say. With a frown, she got up off the bench to return to Harry.

"Gra—Hermione?"

Hermione turned back to Belinda.

Belinda looked awkward. "I just… you're not as ugly anymore as you used to be. Really."

In her own way, Hermione knew that was a compliment from Belinda.

Harry had edged ever closer to them, and when Hermione caught his approach from the corner of her eye she turned her head to look. Harry's eyes were questioning and he held out his hand to her.

Hermione looked one last time at Belinda, went to Harry, and took his hand in hers. She moved in close to his side and walked off with him.

When they were a distance away from the weeping young beauty, Harry asked softly, "What was that about?"

"She finally got a taste of her own medicine," Hermione answered.

Harry didn't answer to that, but he extricated his hand from hers only to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Hermione leaned into him gratefully as they left the park behind them.


	44. Chapter 44

A/N: Now comes another instance in "Vox Corporis" where I will have to ask you, as the reader, to allow me a mistake (much like the clear lack of prefects for fifth year). Harkening back to a previous A/N, I'm an American and I have never actually been to the London Zoo. After I'd written this following scene I went online to see if I could find a map of the exhibits of the London Zoo; instead all I found out was that they do not allow pets. But I'd already written Kimmy into the London Zoo parts, and she rather needs to be there, so you'll just have to go along with me on this one and accept, for this story, that they allow pets at the London Zoo if they are leashed.

* * *

When Miranda pushed into Harry's bedroom at seven-thirty in the morning on Saturday, she knew beforehand that the young wizard would be sound asleep. The kids had only been home a week, but it had been quite enough time for Harry to start sleeping in practically until noon. When Miranda came home for lunch, more times than not, Harry was still in pajamas, but there, as ever, making lunch and being an utter delight to both Miranda and Hermione. And the _wonderful moods_ Hermione and Harry were both always in since coming home for Christmas holiday… as far as Miranda was concerned, Hermione picking Harry to be her boyfriend had been a wise move. Not that she expected less from her brilliant daughter.

Miranda went to Harry's bedside and looked down at him. She smiled. His hair was a right fright, the sheets a tangle around him, his arms flung out and taking up a huge portion of the bed. His face looked untroubled. He was really rather adorable when he slept. Miranda was tempted, for a moment, to watch him a while, just as she had watched Hermione sleep when her daughter had been very little.

But they had a lot of things to do today, and the sooner they started the better.

"Harry," Miranda said gently and reached down to shake Harry's shoulder.

Harry stirred, his face screwed at the jostling, and he rolled away from her, mumbling groggily as he did so, "Few more min'us, Mione."

Miranda chuckled. "Wrong Granger, honey."

Harry's eyes snapped opened, he rolled onto his back, and looked up blearily at Miranda standing over him. It took about two seconds for everything to register. "Missus Granger… sorry." He rubbed at one eye and yawned wide. "Ut time's it?"

"Seven-thirty."

Harry looked aghast but he didn't say anything.

Miranda laughed. "Come on, dear, get your bum out of bed and meet us in the living room for a family meeting."

Harry blinked at her a moment, first bewildered, then stunned, then serious. He nodded and began to disentangle himself from his covers. "I'll be right there."

Miranda left him to it, exiting his room and returning to the living room. When she got there she remained standing and turned to look at the other occupants in the room. Hermione and Jake were already awake and awaiting the start of the busy day. They knew this routine all too well, but they would have to introduce Harry to the ins and outs. Miranda thought it was kind of fun to think of bringing someone new into this particular fold of the Granger family. Expectant, Hermione was in the armchair with Crookshanks curled in her lap. Jake was sitting on one side of the couch, Kimmy perched on the back of the piece of furniture like a squatting castle gargoyle… a cute gargoyle in holly-covered boxer shorts.

Miranda smirked at the house elf. Since Hermione was four years old Miranda and Jake had known there was something different, special, about their little girl. For their daughter's sake, the acceptance of magic had become commonplace in their household. But for the longest time that had amounted to receiving the occasional owl post, having a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ on their kitchen table in the morning next to the regular newspaper, and making trips to the ever-wondrous Diagon Alley. The recent addition of Harry into their lives had brought with it newfound understanding of just what it meant for Hermione to be part of another world, the wizarding world. They had a shape-shifting house elf as their guest, and they'd had to concern themselves with the potential for Harry to 'lose control' of his magic. Hermione never did; they hadn't known it was possible for magic to just get out of hand.

It was an eye-opener, to be sure, and it made Miranda and Jake reevaluate just what their daughter's abilities meant beyond merely going to a special school for magically gifted children. In the end, it all came down to the simple fact Hermione that loved the world of magic, and she was as much a part of it as though she'd been born to a witch and wizard instead of plain, boring Miranda and Jake Granger. She wouldn't give it up anytime soon. It was irreplaceable in her mind and heart.

The world of magic was where she'd found Harry.

Miranda broke from her ruminations when Harry came shuffling into the living room. He'd tamed his hair to a small degree, and he didn't look near as foggy with his glasses on, but he still looked as though he'd like to crawl right back into bed. When he came into the living room his eyes went first to Hermione. Hermione looked over at him and smiled. Harry smiled back, then took a moment to consider the seating options. After a pause, he went over and sat down on the couch next to Jake and almost directly in front of Kimmy. Kimmy, as though unable to restrain herself given the prime opportunity, reached up and began to worry at Harry's hair, trying to comb it down to some semblance of presentable with her fingers.

Harry suffered it gracefully, but Hermione burst out laughing. Crookshanks startled awake and looked over at the cause for the disruption.

Kimmy gave Harry's wild hair a final pat and grinned sheepishly as she dropped her hands back to the couch.

"Thanks, Kimmy," Harry said politely, then looked around at the gathered Grangers. "So… what's going on?"

"Well," Miranda began, eager to jump right into the thick of it, "since you'll be joining us, there are certain things you must know to properly participate in a Granger Family Christmas."

Harry's eyebrows rose and he glanced fleetingly at Hermione.

"Tradition one is today; the shopping outing.

"Since Hermione's away at school all year, we don't expect her to have had any chance to shop for presents coming up on Christmas holiday. So every year, after she has come home for the holiday, one day is devoted entirely to shopping."

Harry looked like he might be ill.

Jake laughed, seeing the same reaction on the boy's face that Miranda did, and pounded Harry on the back. "Cheer up, son, it's not as bad as it sounds. In fact, this year might be the most painless yet, for me, anyway, thanks to you."

"Umm… okay."

Miranda tried not to smile and betray her amusement at Harry's expense. "It's really not so terrible, Harry. Jake and I tended to our shopping before Hermione came home, so it'll only be an excursion for you and Hermione to see to your Christmas shopping.

"Normally, this is how it works. We take turns teaming with Hermione. One of us takes her shopping for the other parent while the one who's being shopped for wiles away their time at the London Zoo. For example, usually I take Hermione to the stores first, and while she's shopping for Jake, Jake's at the zoo. At lunch we meet up, have a bite to eat, then swap. Jake will take Hermione out shopping for me, and I'll have a wander about of the zoo. When we're finished we meet back up, pack up, and head home.

"Now, since there are four of us this year instead of three it'll take a bit more shuffling, but what I thought most practical would be for Hermione and I to team up first off, and you and Jake can go to the zoo. At lunch we'll swap. You and Jake can go around to the stores and Hermione and I will visit the zoo."

Jake leaned slightly in toward Harry, "Believe me, Harry, that's the best you could hope for. By the time lunch rolls around, Miranda's worked her initial shopping frenzy out of her system and is much quicker about it."

Miranda smiled, a little embarrassed that Jake knew her so terribly well. "That's true. Most years, that means we're ready to go back home by four. But what I suggest is that we meet back up at three, trade partners, Hermione will go with Jake and Harry with me, and all four of us will go out shopping. By that time I expect that you and Hermione might already have certain things in mind from having gone shopping in the stores earlier, so I imagine it will be a real quick shop-and-dash affair once we've swapped partners. Now, naturally it wouldn't do for us to meet up in the stores and ruin any surprises, so I've worked out a system where we can be at different ends of London at certain times so we won't run into each other." She turned to pull out a chart she'd drawn up yesterday.

When Miranda stopped to look at her audience, she noticed three very different reactions. Hermione looked eager to see the schedule and commit it to memory. Jake was smiling that gentle, loving smile he tended toward when Miranda went into organizing guru mode. Harry was trying not to smile like he wanted to laugh, he really was, but he wasn't doing very well. Miranda puzzled over that. "Harry?"

Harry surrendered to smiling in pure amusement. "Nothing, just… you sound like Hermione when she's setting up our study schedules coming up on exams."

Hermione grinned, ducked her head, and blushed at the same time. Harry had turned his eyes to her and the light in his gaze was glittering brightly. Jake guffawed. "Well, you had to know Hermione must have gotten it from somewhere."

Hermione looked over at her father and Harry, and when she was met with nothing but affection from the boys on the couch her coloring started to return to normal.

Miranda finally chuckled. "I am a bit of a details person, I'll admit that. But some things you have to plan, else wise it all turns into a mess and then you're just in all manner of trouble."

Hermione nodded absolute agreement and reached out for the shopping schedule in her mother's possession. Miranda handed it over and next grabbed up a bag of adhesive Christmas bows of various colors.

"Now, this is very important… you need to know the bow color-coding for the gifts."

Harry laughed at once at that. "You color-coded Christmas?"

Miranda put one hand on her hip playfully at the question. "Yes. Why?"

Harry shook his head but his gaze went to Hermione again.

Miranda had a guess as to what Harry was thinking. "Well, silly as you may think it sounds, it's actually very important.

"Three days before Christmas we'll be going to my mum's. We celebrate Christmas day there with her. But my dear mother, though I love her, doesn't know about Hermione being a witch. So we have to take care with any presents that might be magical in nature. So, here's how the color-coding system works. Any gift that is magical, or close enough to magic that it would make my mum look askance at it, you put a silver bow on the gift. For the most part, the silver bows should do. When the present has a silver bow on it, we all know to open it so that my mum isn't in a position to lean over and have a peek."

Harry frowned. "But… doesn't she ask? I mean, I… I'll grant I don't know too much about Christmas, but when I'd stay over Christmas at Hogwarts and I'd open presents with Ron he always asked what I'd got."

"Ah, that's where the second part of the silver-bow beauty lies. Sometimes you can hide the true nature of the gift. Like last year, we gave Hermione a book on famous witches in history. Couldn't very well have my mother seeing that, so we took the cover off a book in our library… what was it, sweetie?"

"The Best of Gregor Mendel," Hermione giggled.

Miranda laughed. "That's right… we made out as though Hermione was thinking of majoring in biology when she went to university.

"We took that book cover, wrapped it around the book on witches, and there you go, perfect disguise. And since the gift had a silver bow, you know you're to play along with whatever the gift would appear to be on the surface. But, should it not be something so easily masked, then what we do is dip into the jumper collection."

"Huh?"

Hermione laughed at Harry's confusion and explained herself. "We have a collection of jumpers in the closet, still with the tags on them and everything, that we bought ages ago. All colors and patterns and sizes. If the silver-bow present is something that can't be put off as a muggle gift, then you lay a jumper over it and the receiver act as though the present was the jumper, not the magical thing underneath."

Miranda nodded. "My mum is always going off to the kitchen to check on pies and the like, so when she's gone we usually have a look at the real present."

Harry nodded slowly, face a play of concentration. "Okay, I think I get it."

"If not, I wrote up the rules for you, just so you don't get confused while you're wrapping," Miranda produced her handwritten page of guidelines for gift-wrapping and gave it to Harry.

Harry glanced down at the list briefly and looked up. "Gold?"

"Ah, yes," Jake threw in, "the most important bow color of the color-coding system.

"If the present is something that should not be opened in Berti's presence at all, say it's something that's apt to jump out of the box the moment you open it, then you place a gold bow on the box. More often than not, we don't even take those to Berti's. Rather, they're opened here at home."

"All right," Harry said, "sounds easy enough."

"Now, Harry," Miranda turned serious… well, even more serious than the present color-coding system demanded. "We'll be heading out today and shopping in teams to allow you the opportunity to shop for anyone you might care to, including Jake and me, but by no means does that mean we expect you to get either of us anything. You really don't have to, so _please_ don't think you're obligated."

"All right, I understand."

"Good. Then get dressed everyone, so we can get a start on the day." Everyone started to rise when Miranda remembered something else. "Oh! One last thing… Kimmy?"

"Yes, Missus Granger?"

Miranda cringed to even have to say it. "I… I know you have to stay with Harry, for his protection and everything… the only problem… well, the London Zoo has a strict policy that all pets that visitors bring have to be on a leash."

Kimmy didn't react at first, just stared at Miranda with an unreadable expression. Then she frowned and gave a shrug of her bony shoulders. "Well, if Kimmy must, Kimmy must."

Hermione turned to Kimmy. "I'm very sorry. We'll make it up to you, Kimmy, I _promise_."

Kimmy jumped down from the couch and headed toward the hall, where she'd taken up her old closet quarters. "Kimmy thinks many boxers will be deserved for this, many and pretty," she said over her shoulder as she turned the corner.

Miranda had a feeling that they would all be picking up boxers on this day's outing.

* * *

Jake and Harry bid farewell to Miranda and Hermione at the front gates of the London Zoo. Other zoo visitors were coming and going through the entrance behind them as the four split up for the first portion of the day. Kimmy, in her dog guise, was on a leash as required and standing at Harry's feet like a good little dog would. She didn't really look that upset about the whole leash affair, as far as Jake could tell, but then Harry was being very careful to hold the end of the leash in little more than a two-finger grip. Miranda was in a splendid mood, and Hermione gave Harry a hug before the women hurried off to hit the stores.

Jake put a hand on Harry's shoulder and steered him toward the entrance, where he paid for them to go inside. The lady who took their money gave Kimmy a critical eye and then looked up at Harry. "You keep that dog on its leash, young man."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And have a great day at the London Zoo."

It was a chilly sort of day, with gray skies and a brisk wind pulling at their clothes. Most of the zoo patrons were bundled up snuggly, and those that weren't were seeking out windbreaks. Somewhere to their left an elephant trumpeted, and the birdsong here was different, thanks to the aviaries close to the front entrance.

"Well, then, Harry, where would you like to start?" Jake asked as he stuffed his hands into his pockets for warmth.

Harry looked around as though out of his depth being tasked to decide. "I don't know, wherever you want to go is fine."

"Come now, you must have some preference. Do you have any favorite animals?"

Harry paused a beat. "I like lions."

"Ah, yes, king of beasts and all that. Very manly. I'm partial to the monkeys myself."

Harry cracked a smile. Jake was happy to see the kid loosen up a bit. It would make the day go much more smoothly. Miranda had suggested that this day, his time alone with Harry, might be well-spent getting to know the boy better. Jake didn't think he was on bad terms with Harry, but he couldn't deny that Miranda was much closer to the boy than he was. He tended to trust Miranda's judgment on a great many things, and if she thought Harry was a decent fellow he was apt to go with that. After he and Harry had cleared up the whole issue about Hermione, that issue being that Harry had best not hurt her or there'd be hell to pay, Jake was fine with his standing with the young wizard. But Miranda wanted them to be better acquainted. She suggested it would mean the world to Hermione. For that, Jake would give it his best.

"Well, we should have plenty of time to see both the lions and the monkeys before lunch, so no worries there. Let's go." Jake started them in the direction of the lion exhibit, as he was quite familiar with the layout of the London Zoo. Harry fell in step beside him with Kimmy quick on the boy's heels.

"So, have you ever been to the zoo before, Harry?"

"Once… with my aunt, uncle, and cousin."

"Did you have a good time?"

Harry began to smile. "Better than my cousin did."

"Oh, well doesn't that just reek of mischief. What did you do, throw his jacket in the panda cage?"

Harry laughed. "No." He looked up suspiciously at Jake. "What would make you suggest _that_?"

"I might have been a bit of a prankster in my youth. Not to implicate myself in such a dastardly deed, mind you, but I can tell you that jackets fly better wrapped around a stone. Though the pandas like them less that way."

Harry chuckled.

"So, what happened to your cousin to ruin his day at the zoo?"

"Well, we were in the reptile house when I was eleven and… uh, did Missus Granger tell you about my… snake thing?"

"That you can talk to them? She mentioned it."

Harry nodded. "It was right before I got my letter from Hogwarts, we were at the zoo for Dudley's birthday. They didn't want to take me, they never took me anywhere, but no one would watch me so they were stuck with me for the day. I didn't know anything about my abilities then; I didn't even know I was a wizard.

"Dudley and I were in the reptile house and he was heckling this python. When Dudley walked off I was just standing there talking to the snake and he…talked back."

"If you didn't know you could do that, it must have been kind of scary to have a snake start chatting with you."

"Yeah, well… not half so scary as my uncle's temper later. He wasn't very happy about what happened to Dudley."

"Then get on with it, what happened to this cousin of yours?" Jake asked curiously, for now willing to side-step the atrocious uncle aspect of the story.

"When the snake woke up to talk to me, Dudley ran over to look and knocked me down. I got mad and the glass on the snake's cage just… disappeared. Dudley fell in with the snake and about had a fit."

Jake chuckled.

Harry chuckled as well at the memory. "The snake got out and the glass reappeared, trapping Dudley inside the exhibit."

"Oh!" Jake suddenly remembered. "I recall a news broadcast about an escaped python turning the zoo into a madhouse a few years back. That was you?"

Harry nodded sheepishly.

"My boy, you're a better prankster than I ever aspired to be."

"Uncle Vernon didn't think it was funny."

Jake grunted. "Harry, don't take offense, but my impression of your aunt and uncle is they have a sorely lacking sense of humor toward everything."

"I'm not about to take offense to something that's true. But Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have always been that way, at least where I was concerned."

Jake withdrew a hand from his pocket to touch Harry's shoulder. "Son… I want to tell you something. When I was nine, my father died."

"I'm sorry," Harry said.

"Yes, well, it was very hard to lose him. You know how that is.

"My mother remarried when I was twelve and my step-father… let's just say, there was no love lost between us. He wasn't a bad bloke, but I wasn't fit to have someone replace my father. I gave him and my mum the worst time; I don't speak to them much now because of all the bad blood that I left between us.

"What I mean to say with all this is… I know how hard it can be not to feel you have a proper home or family."

Harry took a few measured breaths as they walked slowly along the walkways between animal cages. "But… now…" Harry said haltingly.

"Now, I have what I'd longed for most ever since I lost my father. Home and family. Miri and Hermione are my light and joy and all that other mushy, girly stuff that Miranda would be better able to explain than I could." For a second Harry smirked. "Just because you didn't have it as a kid doesn't mean you never will."

Harry glanced at Jake's face. "I… that's good to know." Harry nodded to himself, lost in thought. "That's… good."

It took a good bit of guts for Jake to ask his next question, but after talking with Miranda before the kids came home it had gotten in his craw and he wanted an answer to put it to rest. "Have you thought of having a family one day, Harry?" He took his hand from Harry's shoulder because the boy should only have to handle so much pressure on such a loaded question.

Harry flushed slightly. "Yes… I mean, just this last year I have. I thought about it for the first time during this last term, that is."

"Hmmm… the timing of this wouldn't have anything to do with my Hermione, now would it?"

Harry stammered and colored further. "Uh… well… I…"

"I'll take that for a 'yes'."

Harry was rather red by now. Jake decided red in the face was better than deathly pale, the latter of which Jake had seen more of when it came to Harry. Harry was still stumbling over his words. "I don't… I mean, we don't… we've not actually talked about that. We don't talk about the future."

"You don't?" Jake was genuinely surprised at that. When he was dating Miranda, they'd turned to discussing their future fairly early on in the relationship, and it had seemed so dangerously romantic to a pair of kids in their early twenties.

Harry had that look on his face again, the one that catapulted him beyond the body of a teenager and landed his soul squarely in one belonging to a much older man. Harry didn't look once at Jake as he said, "I… I don't usually think about it, but when I do think about it… I think that chances are I'll be dead."

Jake stopped short. Harry overreached him by a pace and had to stop and turn around… though he still didn't meet the older man's eyes. Harry shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, one pocket trailing Kimmy's leash like an electrical cord, and he shrugged as though it were nothing as he continued, "Hermione says I'm scarred. About my parents and all."

"She said that?" It seemed a bit too cold to come from his baby girl.

Harry briefly met his eyes and smirked. "Well, not exactly like that, but that's the short of it. And since it's coming from Hermione, then it's probably right."

Jake slowly continued walking, to keep them moving because movement seemed safer than stillness, and Harry took up silently at his side again. After a time the boy said, "When I… whenever I thought about having a… a family… I thought that I shouldn't think about it."

Jake turned that over in his head for a few moments. "Well, seems to me that it should be the exact opposite."

Harry looked up at Jake in question.

"Losing your parents like you did, like I lost my dad, well, that's not something you get over anytime soon. And it can make death seem… you know, more a neighbor than some chap you hear about at an office party that you're not likely to ever meet. It gets to you, but… maybe that's why you _should_ think about family. Something good to look forward to, you know? A reason to turn that nasty death fellow away at the door when he comes across the yard for a spot of tea."

Harry was pensive and quiet a long time. When he spoke again, it was faintly and haltingly, as though honestly afraid of what he was about to say. "What if… what if I do… let myself think about it… and I start to need it too much?"

Just then, Jake thought he might have some idea of why Miranda had grown so dearly fond of this boy.

"It seems to me, Harry, that you need family just as much as it takes to carry you through your very worst days. And that doesn't really strike me as 'too much'."

The boy didn't have a reply to that, but he looked rocked to his foundation at the thought.

In their silent trek, the pair of them drifted over to the railing in front of a wolf exhibit. By unspoken consent, they stopped to gaze at the canines a while. There were three of them outside of the den, but the lot of them were lying about half-asleep like dogs on their master's rug. One deigned to turn an ear in their direction when they stopped, but beyond that they were uninterested in their spectators. Jake had the sense that Harry wasn't paying much attention to the wolves, anyway.

"Mister Granger?"

"Yes?"

Harry was picking at the paint on the rail nervously, reluctant to look up at him. Come to think of it, Jake hadn't seen too much of the boy's eyes since entering the zoo, so apt was he to look away from Jake's gaze. But then, they had been having some pretty uncomfortable, personal conversation. Harry pressed his lips tightly together then scowled. Eventually, he put words to his dancing expressions. "Do you think someone could need family… and want it… but be… incapable of having it?"

Jake frowned. He wasn't sure what Harry meant. Miranda was so much better at deciphering these kinds of conversations than he. "In what sense?"

If he was any tenser, Harry would be harder from head to toe than the metal rail under his fingers. "I mean… maybe, I've thought, it's just impossible for some people to have families."

Jake turned to face Harry when a thought hit him between the eyes. He was almost too embarrassed to go on. "Err… Harry… are we talking about babies and… performance deficiencies?"

"No!" Harry yelped and went flaming red in the face again. He rubbed a hand through his hair anxiously and looked fit to run off. Kimmy turned her eyes up to them curiously for their new turn in conversation.

For his part, Jake was feeling horrendously uncomfortable, but he knew Harry had no one else to have these conversations with. 'For Hermione,' he told himself in order to rally his courage.

"Because you know, uh… Harry… there are other options. There are doctors, and, uh… procedures… and you know, a lot of couples adopt."

Harry rubbed his face with his hands and groaned, completely mortified. After a while he brought his hands down, wrapped his fingers deliberately around the rail like was thinking of jumping into the wolf pen, and seemed to take a few minutes to compose himself.

When it looked like Harry was back from the edge of committing suicide by wolf attack Jake ventured, "Right, then, if that's not what you meant, what _did_ you mean?" He offered up a baffled shrug.

Harry dropped his gaze to the ground and his grip on the rail turned fierce. He would surely start shaking, and Jake was growing worried. And then Harry spoke.

"I'm scared I'd be a terrible father."

The only sounds were those outside the two men at the rail of the wolf exhibit. Harry was practically frozen, clutching the rail like it was a lifeline. At first, Jake was certain he must have misheard, but he knew he really hadn't. It took a moment for him to fully come to grips with what Harry had truly said. Jake stared openly at Harry, not sure what to say.

To his relief, it was Harry who spoke first after the bombshell. "What do I know about dads?" He shook his head. "I _never_ want to be like my Uncle Vernon. I couldn't be like Ron's dad if I tried." At last, Harry glanced up at Jake. "You're the closest…" Harry trailed and looked away.

It might have been fair to say that, right then, Jake became fond of Harry. Not the degree to which Miranda adored the boy, but on its way. The first step Miranda had hoped to see. The very reason, in fact, that she'd told him the zoo had best stay a part of their holiday tradition when it might have been just as easily left out this year. Miranda was constantly amazing him.

"I might not be quite the genius my wife is… or my daughter," Jake said, and at the last Harry's rigid exterior cracked a bit to permit a flicker of a smile. "But I don't think you need to worry about that, Harry."

Harry glanced cautiously toward Jake from the corner of his eye.

"First off, you're still fifteen. You're not going to be thinking about having children anytime soon." Funny, how that came out more of an order than an observation. "And you might be surprised how years will change you. You'll be shocked when you're eighteen and look back on how daft you were at fifteen."

Harry almost smiled again.

"Second… a good father comes from a good man. And being a good man doesn't come from how you were raised, because that can be overcome if it was an absolute wreck. Not easily, but it can be. Being a good man comes from you. You may still be a teenager, but you've won my daughter and my wife, and they're not women easily beguiled by dishonesty. I have to think if you've got them in your corner then you're a better man already than you think you are.

"When I was younger, your age even, I wasn't always what people would call a good man. I wasn't _bad_, but I wasn't exactly good, either. It took Miranda to make me want to be a good man. Some days, I think she even managed."

Harry actually smiled that time, a little thinly but it was better than stony inscrutability.

"And then there's that," Jake added. "The right girl can make you a better person than you ever thought you could be." Jake stopped to study Harry a moment, then asked pointedly, "Shall we stop bandying words about and just come out and say that in all this we're talking about Hermione?"

Harry met Jake's gaze steadily and gave a small nod.

Jake nodded in return and took a moment to get past the aversive reaction to thinking of Harry and Hermione going about making these fabled babies for which Harry was so scared of being a bad father. It made him queasy and heartsick. 'Think of Hermione's smile when she's with Harry,' Jake prompted himself to give him fortitude, but that seemed to ache as much as it helped.

"Right… well, then, back to that 'being a good father' business…" Jake stopped and leaned his elbows on the rail. He glanced at Harry beside him and couldn't help himself; he had to ask. "Were you just speaking abstractly, or have you actually thought of having children _with_ _Hermione_?"

Harry gave a careful nod.

Jake could barely imagine thinking of those things at fifteen. He'd been more interested in… well, other, less virtuous things at fifteen and even the years that followed. Actually, he hadn't considered fatherhood until Miranda was the one to possibly give it to him. He was growing a little uneasy with the parallels he kept finding between himself and Miranda and Harry and Hermione. Should that be feasible at fifteen? Could anyone be fit to find their match in those tumultuous teenager years?

"Now, look, Harry. You're young. So is Hermione. Maybe things won't work out that way. People change as they grow up, and it doesn't mean either of you will have done anything wrong if it ends up that you two grow apart.

"But for the sake of argument let's say you don't and things do go in that direction. If you're going to ask questions about being a father, best not forget the mother." Jake wasn't fit to take these kinds of talks, it would give him a coronary. When they did the autopsy, they'd have to conclude that giving up daddy's little girl was the cause of death, and that would just be really humiliating to have all the guys from work know something so… unmanly, had done in Jake Granger. Hard to come back from things like that.

"Might be I'm biased to think my daughter can do no wrong, but I'm certain Hermione's going to be a great mum someday."

Harry smiled faintly. "She will be."

He sounded as confident of that as Jake, and the elder Granger couldn't say if that made him like Harry better or not.

"Well, then you'll have her to help you. You won't be alone."

Harry swallowed and his breathing changed. He gripped the rail again and dipped his chin fractionally toward his chest, as though bracing against a stiff wind. 'He can't comprehend the idea of someone always being there,' Jake realized. Miranda was right… how could the poor boy's family have been this cruel to him? He deserved better. Jake might not be ready to say Harry deserved _Hermione_, but better than he'd been dealt.

"And I'll tell you something else, Harry. You can't really prepare for how much you're going to love your children. It's just not possible, not even in that world of magic of yours. It'll just about knock your feet out from under you, no matter how ready you think you are. If love's half the battle in parenting, then you start off that first day with the war already half-won."

Harry was looking very closely at Jake then, a strange calm in his expression.

Jake tapped a finger against Harry's forearm. "And don't you forget me and Miranda. You think we won't want to be all involved with our grandkids? You best believe we'll be there. We'll be there right from the first diaper change, probably giving you all kinds of advice and tips when you don't ask for them until you'd love us to just shut up and leave you be."

Harry smiled tentatively, but he did look as though he felt a fair bit better about the whole matter.

"And I suspect you don't give yourself enough credit. From what I've seen of you so far, I'd hazard to say you'll be a pretty good dad."

Harry looked like he couldn't choose between laughing, dancing, or crying (the last of which made Jake feel a tad flighty; Miranda was so much better at this stuff). Jake had never seen Harry so… on the cusp of deliriously happy. Jake had to think the fact that being told he'd be a good father, when he was merely fifteen, could have such a profound effect on him said quite a lot about the kind of person Harry was. Jake also had to think he probably should have listened to Miranda sooner.

"I'll _try_ to be, I'll really try," Harry said, almost under his breath, like a promise he was terrified to make for fear he wouldn't be able to follow through on his word.

With his wife in mind, with Hermione's beaming smile on his thoughts, Jake caught Harry around the shoulders with one arm and drew him into a hug. The boy tensed for just a moment before he was returning the hug.

"You'll do just fine, son," Jake said as he gave the boy's back a few resounding thumps.

"Thank you, Mister Granger," Harry said into his shoulder in a strained voice.

Jake stepped away from the young man and said, "Harry, after the conversation we just had, I think I'd rather you call me Jake."

Harry smiled at him. "Okay. Thanks, Jake."

Jake was feeling pretty good, all things considered, and he hadn't keeled over from a heart-attack, which was better than he'd thought for the outcome of that particular talk. Just then he cocked his head and regarded Harry as the boy stood before him. "Harry… Hermione doesn't know about any of this, does she?" Harry had said that the two of them never talked about the future. How could she know the things Harry had been thinking if it was part of a subject they never discussed? It seemed… unfair, somehow, that Harry could think about the possibility of children and not share that with Hermione. Jake could only imagine how those kinds of dreams would warm his daughter's heart, difficult though it was for Jake to admit that to himself.

Harry's eyes widened and he shook his head. "No, sir. Jake."

Jake shook his head. It just seemed a pity, but Jake wasn't quite ready to play match-maker like Miranda may have were she in his shoes. "Well, I'm not about to go telling you what to do, but for what it's worth… I think knowing you've given serious thought to the two of you having kids would make her really happy."

Harry looked wary but thoughtful.

"Bugger it all," Jake said abruptly with a theatrical shake of his shoulders, as though given the willies by something especially repugnant. "That was all horribly effeminate of us. If the girls ask, we spent the entire time talking about Quidditch and football."

Harry chuckled. "Right."

"Right. Come on, then, we were on the way to the lions, I believe." With that, the two men, with a Chihuahua accompanying them, resumed their trek toward the lion exhibit.


	45. Chapter 45

As they walked between the cages of the animal exhibits at the London Zoo, Harry still felt vaguely shell-shocked from his conversation with Hermione's father. He still couldn't really believe he'd said most of the things he did. They'd been talking about Dudley and the escaped python a lifetime ago, and then suddenly it became a conversation about family… and Harry confessing his fears, fears he'd not even permitted himself to fully dissect, to the older man. Harry couldn't rightly say how it had happened, but there was no denying the things he'd said. It was like he'd been slipped veritaserum and all these things just came out. Things he'd never even told Hermione.

His heart had been hammering the entire time, but it had been easier to talk to Jake about those forbidden thoughts than Harry would have suspected. And some of the things Jake said… they actually made Harry feel better.

Truthfully, he hadn't expected the acceptance he found in Jake when they started talking. It was a pretty sensitive subject, after all, and doubly so to have it be Jake the one with whom it was taken up.

It felt as though a burden Harry hadn't known he was carrying had been lifted when Jake hugged him like Miranda did. It was a little awkward maybe, but the only other people who'd ever hugged him were Hermione and Miranda. In that company, hugs held special meaning for Harry. Only people who really cared bothered to hug the likes of Harry Potter. To believe for even a moment that Jake might care a fraction of the same amount that Hermione and Miranda did… it made him feel strange things. But good strange.

And nothing catastrophic had happened when he gave voice to those frightening thoughts that had been plaguing him ever since that day in Divination. The first seed in his thoughts to plant to notion of fatherhood in his head, the baby from his vision. In a way, he'd told Jake. Not specifically, but in all manner that it mattered. And Jake hadn't hated him on the spot for it. At the time, Harry had felt it one of the more terrifying things he'd ever done to say those things to Jake, but it had turned out much better than he'd thought.

Crazy as it sounded for a powerful wizard like Harry Potter, he'd been rather scared of Jake Granger for reasons that continually mystified Harry. But now it seemed that had been supremely silly. Jake wasn't mean or dangerous. Actually, he was a very nice guy.

Harry was feeling pretty good, though admittedly a bit lost in his own head, when Jake touched his shoulder. He didn't even tense at the man's touch as much as he used to. "Here we are."

Harry blinked and looked up to see they were in front of the lion exhibit.

Harry and Jake stepped up to the railing and looked in past the crisscrossed wire walls at the animals within. The habitat was set up with a stone wall with a cave-like entrance at the back, a rock 'patio' of sorts laid out before the cave opening (in which the watering pool was situated), and elsewhere in the enclosure grass and a few scattered trees.

There were two lionesses lying about outside on the stone ground. One was sprawled entirely on her side, sound asleep. The second, a few feet away from the first, was perched up on her elbows and would have seemed more alert than her companion, but her head was drooping and her eyes were shut. That didn't mean they were unimpressive to look upon, even dozing. They were sleek and tawny, packed with potential brawn and power even at rest, with stout necks bare of manes. Harry looked closely at them through the fencing. They were nice enough, but Harry thought Hermione was far prettier.

"Oh, damn," Jake commented as he stood at the rail next to Harry. "Just figures the male wouldn't be out. Probably inside sacked on the couch watching the telly. The boy lions are the really interesting ones to look at, don't you think?"

Harry shrugged. "I like the lionesses better."

"Huh… well, your lucky day more so than mine, it would seem."

Harry stared intently at the lionesses. It was the first real lion he'd ever seen; one that wasn't a transformed figure of his girlfriend. He wondered how much these creatures were like Hermione when she was in her lioness form. Were they just as playful? Affectionate with each other? Tactile? Intense? Formidable? As he studied the cats, he thought of Hermione when she looked very much the same as the lionesses before him. At some point, he stopped blinking in his concentration. He thought about the way Hermione's tail twitched and her brown eyes shone brightly with playfulness when they were romping in the forest. From the position of her body and the look in her eyes he could tell when she was thinking of pouncing on him. He thought of the way her muscles moved, graceful and strong, her body a regal, incredible weapon, from her fangs to her back claws. And yet even with that deadly capacity, he was reminded of the way she could be so gentle when she rubbed up against him, raked her head against his shoulder or along the underside of his throat. He thought of the roughness of her tongue when she licked his face, and how his whiskers would fairly hum like a struck tuning fork with the merest touch of her. He remembered her scent when she was the cat, as vividly as if she were standing next to him, and it was much sweeter and more pleasing than the scent of the lionesses before him. He could smell them well enough to know the difference in these lionesses and his lioness.

As though startled by the same unheard sound, both lionesses woke. The one dozing abruptly opened her golden eyes, perked up her ears, and turned her head. The lioness on her side rose up to mirror her sister's posture, her own head turning at once. Shortly, Harry had both cats staring directly at him with amber gazes. It might have been a discomfiting experience to be on the receiving end of such steady big cat stares, but Harry was used to having a lioness focused solely on him. And he had a powerful cat of his own to meet the intensity of the plains hunters.

One lioness rose and took a few steps toward him and stopped, her stare never once breaking from his. Harry noticed every detail, every measured move and every deliberate tick of the lioness's body. Even in body language, the tiniest details separated Harry's lioness from these two. It was as glaring as meeting a stranger on the street and knowing them from a friend. The shape and manner and shade might be very much the same, but like night and day all the same in all the innumerable differences.

The lioness standing and facing him lowered her head fractionally, and it leveled an even more pointed stare on Harry. It was a measuring look, fit for a sudden interloper.

Harry's eyes snapped away from the lioness to the back of the enclosure when a shadow emerged from the cave opening. A big male lion with a full apricot mane stepped purposefully toward his females. Near the lioness still lying on the stone, the male lion stopped in his tracks. His head and eyes turned to Harry and the two locked gazes.

This was different. Harry might know lionesses, but he'd not met a lion before. His senses jumped to a new level of alertness… and a strange thread of tense readiness set him just barely on edge.

The male lion paced toward the boundary of the cage, came boldly closer than the lioness had without so much as a second's hesitation, and stopped just shy of the fence. He was standing directly in front of Harry. It was close enough for Harry to be inundated with the male's smell. It was coarser to the nose, muskier and thicker, and not nearly so sun-kissed pleasant as the females'. His advantage of raw physical power over the females was not lost on Harry. The golden eyes were challenging where the females' had been curious and wary. It made the hair on the back of Harry's neck bristle.

'But these lionesses are not _my_ lioness,' he thought in a remarkably clear, logical voice. Hermione would have been quite proud of that calm sensibility, in fact. The two lionesses were strangers with strangers' faces and strangers' smells. Really, this male lion had no cause or need to think Harry any manner of challenge to him.

As though the lion could sense that in the same moment Harry did, the male's stare tempered. His look turned curious, as though only just realizing that this entire time he'd been staring at a human boy. The standing lioness, as though taking some kind of cue from the change in her mate's stance, came closer to stand at his shoulder and take a closer look at Harry.

Harry couldn't say how long he may have stood there watching the lions with singular intensity were it not for a tugging at his pant leg. Harry's gaze broke entirely from the lion and lioness as he glanced down at the tugging.

And the jaguar backed off, curiosity satisfied.

As Harry looked down at Kimmy, his pant leg in her teeth as she yanked for his attention, it was the first time he realized that he'd touched the jaguar at all. It took him off guard. He'd not consciously sought the cat inside him, but it had come forward and lent its abilities to him while he'd not been paying attention. He was looking down at Kimmy, but his mind was still boggling over how the jaguar had just crept into him without him knowing it was waking.

"Whoa."

Harry turned at the sound of Jake's voice. The man was watching the animals in the cage. Harry glanced at the cats as well. The lioness had turned and walked back to where her sister was lying. When the bolder of the two lionesses reached the lioness that had remained behind during the near-incident, they rubbed their heads together in greeting. The standing lioness flopped down next to the other, their bodies in close contact. She looked over her shoulder at the male, who was still near the fence watching Harry. When the boy returned his eyes to the large cat, the male studied Harry a moment, his whiskers twitched as he sniffed the air, then he dropped his eyes in end to their stand-off and turned back to rejoin his lionesses.

"Harry…"

Harry looked back toward Jake, filled with trepidation to discover how Hermione's father was going to react to what had just happened. Jake turned from watching the cats to looking around at the other zoo visitors to see if any of them had noticed anything unordinary. When he seemed assured they hadn't, he looked down at Harry and leaned closer so he could lower his voice. "Do you talk to lions, too?"

Harry shook his head and searched for something to say to try and explain what Jake had seen. "Uh… maybe they can sense magic."

That made Jake's face screw. "Oh… strange, it's never happened with Hermione. But then, she does have regular parents, so maybe… well, do you think we ought to get out of here before anything… 'conspicuous' happens?"

"No, I… it'll be all right. I'll keep a tighter rein on it," 'and keep a closer watch over the jaguar around the big cat exhibits,' Harry added internally.

From the expression that was still fixed upon on his face, Jake looked a bit concerned about the wisdom of sticking around the zoo after the lions, but in the end he trusted Harry's assessment of his own magic. "All right, then, we'll stay. But if you think it's about to become a problem you let me know and we'll kip out of here right quick. We can wait for the girls outside, maybe even have a walk around London until it's time to meet them for lunch."

Harry nodded and glanced down at Kimmy. She was looking back up at him, understanding in her green eyes. She'd be on the look-out for any slips, too, just as she'd saved him from this one. But hopefully, now that Harry knew the jaguar could stalk up on him, he'd see it coming.

"Come on." Jake motioned for Harry to follow him and the two men, plus dog, left the lion exhibit behind. "Since we're staying I want to stop over and look in on the primates. There's a chimp that's become something of a mate to me over the years."

* * *

Miranda did hope that things were going well with Jake and Harry. While she and Hermione were out and about so Hermione could do her Christmas shopping, the younger of the two Granger women had spoken of nothing else. Harry this, Harry that. And she'd been smiling radiantly the entire time.

Really, it wasn't so different from when Hermione had been eleven years old and home for the holiday. She'd taken an early liking to Harry Potter that had only intensified through the years. Miranda was thrilled to see her daughter so alive, so vibrant and excited about something with emotional substance. School had always been her passion, but it was safe. Because it was safe, it could only provide Hermione's spirit with so much enrichment and growth. This relationship with Harry… it offered more than academia ever could. The proof of that was in Hermione's eyes and her smile.

But Miranda hoped things went well with Jake and Harry. Jake had thought that being cordial with the boy was enough, and for any other boy it may have been. But not Harry. Miranda had figured out that if there was any ambiguity in a relationship, Harry was prone to assume the worst. So long as Jake was only maintaining friendly terms with Harry, the young man would think Jake disliked him. Miranda knew her husband; he wasn't the disliking sort. She knew he'd come around to the idea of having Harry in Hermione's life… now Harry needed to learn that.

When Miranda and Hermione returned to the London Zoo to meet up with the boys, the sight from down the street looked promising. Jake and Harry were sitting on the jutting lower portion of the stone façade of the zoo's brick exterior fencing. Kimmy was napping, or to outward appearances _seemed_ to be napping, at Harry's feet while the two men carried on. They were chatting and just as the girls came within hearing range Jake laughed. Miranda couldn't help but smile hopefully.

As they drew closer Hermione could no longer contain herself and broke into an eager jog that set her wild hair to flying in the winter air.

"Hey, Dad, hey, Harry! What's so funny?" Hermione shoved down next to Harry on the stone, their slim bodies sharing what might have served as space for one. Kimmy looked up and gave a merry bark at Hermione's arrival. Jake was still chuckling and Harry turned a terribly luminous smile on Hermione. "Hey, Mione."

Miranda caught up with her family and stood quietly to hear just what had been so amusing.

"I was just telling Jake about that time you and Ron were out by the Shrieking Shack and I terrorized Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle."

Miranda's eyebrows rose. He'd been telling 'Jake', had he?

Hermione laughed. "Their faces were _priceless_. But they were _asking_ for it, those bloody gits."

"Never imagined my daughter to take up with such a pack of rebels," Jake remarked with a chuckle.

"Misfits," Harry and Hermione corrected in unison.

Jake guffawed and looked up at Miranda. "You hear these two?"

"Yes, I hear them," Miranda said kindly, "did you boys have fun at the zoo?"

"We did."

Hermione turned to address Harry. "Dad dragged you to see the monkeys, didn't he?"

While Harry smiled, Jake quipped, "As long as old Rupert's still throwing fruit and pissing off trees I'll keep visiting the chimpanzee exhibit. That old ape's a right good laugh."

"For those who are easily amused," Miranda parried with a sweet smile.

Jake touched his chest, as though mortally wounded.

"Aside from that foul old chimp, what else did you two do today?"

Harry and Jake exchanged a look, then Jake answered, "Talked sports. Right, Harry?"

"Right, Jake."

"Uh huh…" Miranda hadn't been married to Jake for roughly twenty years without being able to tell when he was lying. But if the two of them were smiling and conspiring together like mates, then she'd not take exception to their little intrigue. Most likely it had been some unflattering man-conversation about women. While the cat's away, as the old saying went.

"Well, I don't know about you three, but I'm famished. Let's go grab some lunch."

"Yet another brilliant idea, Miri, I could have eaten some of that rubbish Rupert was hurling at his admirers, I'm so hungry." The three of them stood up and Jake led the way toward the car. Hermione had wasted no time in taking Harry's free hand, and the two of them were walking side by side, but Miranda caught Harry by the elbow as she took up alongside him, Kimmy trotting along between them. "Harry? May I speak with you?"

Hermione gave Harry a smile, let go of his hand, and hurried ahead to walk beside her father. Kimmy hurried over to the side of Harry that Hermione had vacated, giving Miranda room to walk less careful of her feet. Harry turned his eyes to Miranda questioningly, and he looked really, honestly comfortable with her.

"I noticed you calling Jake by his name instead of 'Mister Granger' just now. How did that come about?"

"Umm… he asked me to?"

Miranda, privately, was very pleased. Outwardly, she pursed her lips. "Well, that just won't do."

A flicker of doubt and worry clouded Harry's eyes and lined his expression.

"I'll not be 'Missus Granger' while Jake gets to go by his given name. You will call me Miranda, won't you, dear?"

Harry gave a relieved smile. "Yes, of course… uh, Miranda."

Miranda smiled. "There's a good boy. Now, tell me about this Shrieking Shack business."


	46. Chapter 46

Berti didn't abide much by CD players, nor the discs that went in them. Henry had been the one who loved music. It was he who had accumulated their collection of music. That was one of the many little things that still caught at Berti when she wasn't prepared for it, walking by his stack of CDs and seeing the film of dust on them. It seemed all of yesterday and a lifetime ago. Six years. Six compared to so many when he'd been there. She'd grieved and continued living. The loss of Henry was a hollow in her soul, but she had children and grandchildren… she had life to live yet. In general, every day was easier than the day before. But the CDs still got to her now and then, like his empty side of the bed made it fresh every morning, and the pastures empty of all but lonely old Antigone screamed his absence.

But at Christmas, Berti brushed off the dust on player and discs to put in Hermione's favorite Christmas albums. It was tradition, and affinity for tradition and order had passed nearly undiluted from Henry to Miranda to Hermione. Now most of these holiday staples were for precious Hermione, as Christmas naturally bequeathed itself to children. Every year the house was filled with music before Hermione came through the door, greeted by her most beloved Christmas songs and her grandmother's open arms.

Music was ousting the ghosts of a quiet house, and Berti began to wander past the frost-framed front windows, watching for Miranda and Jake's car. So far, she had looked out only on the snow-covered grounds that spread out from Agincourt.

And finally, on one pass, she saw the familiar car coming down the road. Berti smiled and went to the door. The snow suggested it would be colder than it truly was, for at the moment there was no wind to carry the crisp winter through the threads of the most tightly-woven garments. Berti was warm enough merely donning an old cardigan over her regular clothing. She stepped out on to the porch and was waiting where she always did as the car pulled up in front of the house.

As always, Hermione was the first one out of the car and rushing up to meet her on the porch. Every time it took Berti's breath, just how beautiful Miranda's daughter was. Hermione grew lovelier every day. She had everything that made Miranda a treasure, the best parts of Jake, and then a few amazing things all her own. Not a child anymore, though… there was no kidding herself that Hermione had not become a young woman. A beautiful, vibrant woman.

"Gram!" Hermione called, all smiles and bright eyes and wonderfully wild hair and rosy cheeks from the cold, as she rushed up the steps and threw her arms around Berti.

Berti caught the girl in a reciprocal embrace and squeezed. "Happy Christmas, Hermione."

"Happy Christmas, Gram." Hermione stepped back and beamed up at her. Berti touched Hermione's cheek then turned her eyes to the car as the rest of the family piled out. Miranda waved and grinned and Jake twisted at the waist to crack his back after the drive. And lastly, a certain dark-haired boy from last summer got out of the backseat of the car and stretched.

Interesting.

"Mum," Miranda said as she scaled the shallow steps porch to give Berti a hug. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas, dear. Delighted you could make it. Jake! Get up here to get what's coming to you this instant."

Jake chuckled and obeyed. When he had joined them on the porch Berti gave Jake just what he was due… a good hug. "It's good to see you again, Berti. You look well."

"Well enough, well enough. I take it things are good with you?"

"Can't complain. But things will be even better once I've had a cup of your tea."

"Well, don't you worry about that; it's on the stove even now keeping warm for you." Berti caught movement from the corner of her eye and looked past Jake to see that Harry had quietly approached and now stood at the foot of the steps, doing his best not to intrude. That elusive little dog of his was next to him but looking one direction then another, maybe listening for something furry to chase.

Berti glanced at Hermione, still close to her right side. The girl was very aware of Harry on the fringe of the family reunion. It didn't take a genius.

"I see you've come back, Harry."

"Um, yes, ma'am."

Then there was a tugging on her cardigan, and Berti hardly needed to look to know it was Hermione seeking her attention; the girl had done the same since she was tall enough to reach Berti's shirt… and before that, it was a skirt or pant leg. She looked down and Hermione's face was upturned to meet her gaze, her expression bright as the sun reflecting off untouched snow. "Harry's my boyfriend now, Gram."

"Oh, _really_? _Boyfriend_, you say." Berti looked slyly back to the boy in question. Harry blushed and looked away bashfully. Miranda had been right on all counts about this Harry boy, he was adorably shy. But it would seem not too shy to have the sense to ask Hermione to honor him with her affections.

"If that's the case, then best get up here, young man," Berti said mock-sternly.

Harry did as told and when he'd come close enough Berti caught him up in a hug. "Dreadfully sorry, Harry, but once you take to kissing one of my girls you're required to submit to hugs."

Harry stammered unintelligibly as he relented to the old woman's brief embrace. When he was released Jake put his hand on the boy's shoulder in a show of solidarity. "She's right on that count, son, I've been privileged to rate Berti hugs from the time I first started dating Miranda."

"You're a real sweet talker, Jake. Now, come on in out of the cold, all of you. You can bring in your luggage and packages after you've warmed yourselves."

"I need to go get Crookshanks," Hermione stated at the invitation to go inside, "he's still in the backseat of the car."

"I'll get him," Harry offered.

"You'll have to carry him; he hates to get his feet wet in the snow."

"I know. I'll just be a second." Harry turned back to the car and trudged through the layer of snow coating the ground to retrieve the cat. The Chihuahua bounded along beside him, up to her belly in the snow but undeterred.

"Your cat approves of Harry?" Berti mused aloud, "Well, that's a sure sign of a good match. This Harry bloke may be a keeper when it's all said and done."

"Gram," Hermione said with an eye roll, but she was smiling even as she would seem to scold her grandmother.

"What? Animals are good judges of character, honey, it's a known fact. And naturally, his dog _adores_ you."

Hermione smiled sweetly, that same kind of smile Miranda used to brandish when she and Benedick were sneaking treats from the kitchen. "His pet likes me."

"But of course she does. Good judges of character. Come on, enough standing about out here, let's go inside. We'll have a spot of tea to warm the lot of you up after your trip. We'll leave the door open for Harry."

Berti, Miranda, Jake, and Hermione trooped into the house and congregated in the kitchen, drawn just as much by the aroma of tea as Berti's herding gestures. Berti was pouring tea while the Granger family found seats at the table. Just as Berti was passing out steaming cups Harry came in with the fluffy ginger cat in his arms. The dog was nowhere to be seen, but Berti had noticed last summer that the dog had a habit of disappearing, seemingly into thin air for as stealthy as she was about it, only to reappear later none the worse for wear. The missing dog didn't give her any cause to worry.

"Here," Harry moved over to where Hermione was sitting and passed the cat to her. Crookshanks curled contently on Hermione's lap, looking relieved to be in out of the cold.

"Thanks, Harry. I saved you a seat." And she certainly had, the one right next to hers, in fact. Harry smiled and sat down.

When everyone had a drink Berti sat down with her family. She wrapped her hands appreciatively around the warm porcelain and took a sip from her cup, steamy vapors curling past her face and drifting up her nose. The first taste on her tongue was full of memories. It tasted like Christmas. She only spiced it this way at Christmas, had every year since the first year she'd been married to Henry and tea had been very nearly the most they could afford to spend on Christmas treats. Those had been some of the best years, until the children were born.

"Mmmm…" Jake hummed appreciatively as he drank the steaming beverage. "This alone was worth the trip. You're a magician, Berti."

Harry made an odd face at that, but Berti had fielded that particular Jake Granger compliment before. "And a fairy and a gnome and Saint Nick's wife, too, while I'm at it. Why not?"

"Why not?" Hermione replied with a giggle, and Harry was smiling again. The boy caught on fast, that much could be said for him. But then, Berti didn't figure Hermione to go for a dunderhead.

Miranda looked around the kitchen after enjoying a taste or two of the family traditional holiday drink. "So I take it Ben won't be able to make it this year."

"Unfortunately, no," Berti answered. "He and his wife are spending the holidays with her parents again this year."

"It's been a long time since he's come home for Christmas…" Miranda said a bit sadly of her brother's absence. Once, Miranda and Benedick had been very close, thick as thieves, as Henry liked to say. It was a sad thing to see an ocean distancing the siblings.

Berti nodded grimly that Miranda would point out right off her missing brother. She'd noticed that, too. "Yes, and I'd hoped they might fly in this year since it has been so long since he's been here to spend Christmas with us. But flying the five of them across the pond for the holiday wouldn't be easy or particularly affordable. He called the other day, apologized for not being able to come, and I told him I understand. He promised he'll try to make it next year." For all the likelihood that held of coming to pass. She could see on her daughter's face that Miranda's was entertaining similar thoughts. Berti didn't especially care for dreary talk on such a happy holiday. Time to change to the direction of the conversation. "But just as well the Americanized branch of the Richardson family couldn't be here, because where would we put everyone? Miri, you and Jake will be in your old room, same as every year. Hermione, you can bed down in Uncle Ben's room…" she turned to the newest addition to the family Christmas. "Harry, would it trouble you terribly to sleep on the couch?"

"Not at all. That'll be just fine, Missus Richardson."

"Wonderful. It's settled then. And _ugh_," Berti made a bitter face, "'Missus Richardson'… so dreadfully formal, and at Christmastime in my own house, too. Must be something we can do about that. That kind of formality might have been well and good for a summer visit, before you were dating our sweet Hermione, but that just won't do for Christmas with your _girlfriend's_ family."

Back was the blush she'd gotten used to seeing on the poor boy during his and Hermione's summer stay whenever she gave him a good teasing. Jake had never been so prone to turn shades of scarlet like Harry was, and Berti knew, she'd tried.

Miranda laughed. "We've had Harry take to calling Jake and me by our given names. That's gone over pretty well. He's almost past slipping up and calling us 'Mister and Missus Granger', too." Miranda looked to Harry with a playful smile. Harry again blushed slightly but smiled in kind.

"Hmmm… there's a thought. Roberta. Berti." She shook her head after a moment thinking over that possibility. "Oh, that's a bit strange given the age gap." Then she had the solution. Quite simple, really. "Looks as though you'll just have to call me Gram like Hermione does, Harry."

Harry's eyes widened and his lips parted, as though stuck on a trapped word that wouldn't form.

"Think you can manage it?" Berti asked.

Harry closed his mouth, swallowed, and nodded, "Sure… if you really want me to."

"I think it's the best choice. You know, I'm of that grandmotherly age, and it would seem queer to have Hermione call me one thing and you another, don't you agree?" Berti turned the idea over in her head a few times to test out the edges. "Yes, I think that will work. Young people in my house should call me Gram, I think."

Jake pouted. "Then why haven't you asked _me_ to call you Gram?"

It was a blatant tease, and it made everyone laugh. Even Harry chuckled and shared an amused look with Hermione.

"I hate to be the one to break it to you, Jake, but you're not _that_ young."

"You wound me, Berti," Jake returned, but it was all in fun, and it seemed to put Harry at ease. Berti had a good laugh, just as much for having a full and merry house again as for Jake's familiar funning. She did so love Christmas.

When she had her composure fully back, Berti asked, "Would anyone care for some biscuits to go with their tea?" Then Berti watched. It was a holiday ballet, though the star dancer didn't realize she had center stage. Berti saw Miranda cut a very amused, knowing look toward her daughter in silent anticipation. Miranda knew this Christmas waltz, too.

As if on cue, Hermione fidgeted in her seat. It was the start, the first of step of the dance. It made the elder woman smile. Berti cherished her predictable, adorable little granddaughter, positively cherished her.

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip, picked up her mug only to set it down without drinking, and darted her eyes from one parent to the other. She finally could stand it no longer. "Don't you think we should go pick out a tree before it gets too late in the day?"

Jake hid a smile behind his hand.

"Just… wouldn't want all the good ones to be gone and be stuck with the tatty, browned ones." Hermione appealed to the others at the table with a plaintive expression, one that no one in the room could deny, so far as Berti knew. She couldn't be certain about Harry, but she had a feeling.

"Oh, no," Jake countered, "_that_ wouldn't do at all."

Hermione brightened hopefully.

Miranda finally gave in and laughed. "You don't even want a bite of lunch before heading back out?"

Hermione's expression set in a determined scowl, though she made a concerted effort to sound reasonable rather than insistent. "I _suppose_ we could. But we did have a big breakfast… I'm not even really hungry yet, honestly."

Miranda looked across at Jake, her husband's eyes glittering because he knew this tradition, too, and she gave him a surrendering smile and head tick of assent.

"Okay, okay," Jake held up his hands, "you've talked me into it. Far be it from me to ruin Christmas by dooming the lot of us to a tatty, brown tree."

Hermione grinned and was up out of her seat in a flash. Crookshanks, practically dumped on the floor when his mistress stood abruptly, landed lightly on the floor on all four paws, yowled in protest, and padded off, offended to the height of his feline haughtiness.

"Would you like to come tree-hunting with us, Harry?" Jake asked as he got up from the table, at a much calmer pace than his daughter.

"Oh! Do, Harry, it's so much fun!"

"Yeah, all right." Harry smiled up at Hermione and she eagerly tugged on his arm. The boy looked fit to consent to any manner of outing if it was with Hermione. She could probably have suggested dumpster-diving and gotten just as willing partner in the young man. Harry's little dog turned up, at just the right moment as usual, and waited patiently with tail wagging. Seemed there would be four of them going on this little sojourn. Harry did take that dog everywhere, and the perky little animal knew that like it was a right.

"Still room in the car for more," Jake offered.

Berti chuckled. "I'll leave this very important mission in Hermione's very capable hands, I think. She has my utmost confidence."

Hermione beamed proudly, looking every bit the entrusted protégé of a great master going it solo for the first time.

"Miri?"

"You three go on ahead; I'll stay with Mum and get lunch started. You may not be hungry now, but by the time you get back I'll wager you will be."

With Hermione at the head of the trio, pulling Harry after her in her enthusiasm with the Chihuahua hot on their heels as Jake brought up the rear, the group of tree-seekers left mother and daughter alone in the kitchen.

In the ensuing quiet of the house, Berti looked to her daughter. Miranda was smiling gently to herself, her eyes on the place her family had just been. "Pence for them?" Berti prompted.

Miranda just barely shook her head. "Just thinking."

About how Christmas brings out the boy in your husband. About your daughter fit to burst with glee and merriment for this special holiday as if there were not a care in the world beyond the perfect tree. How there are moments when everything can seem perfect. How time stopped for Christmas and held that moment in time for days, magical and enchanted with lights and trees and family. That smile on Miranda's lips had been Berti's once; she knew the wonders of Christmas from a wife and mother's perspective all too well.

Berti reached out and patted Miranda's arm. "We best get to that lunch; no doubt the kids will be ravenous by the time Hermione's found the perfect Christmas tree."

Miranda chuckled and stood to help her mother with the meal.

* * *

Harry had wended through many a forest with Hermione, but none quite like this. He'd never been to a Christmas tree lot before, though Hermione seemed to know them like a native forest sprite. He stepped between the rows and clusters of pine trees and breathed in deeply. It smelled of the woods, but without the lacings of other tree species or the hint of fauna making their homes in the branches. Also missing in this artificial forest was the carpet of shed foliage underfoot, or the sense of perfect anarchy to where the trees chose to rise tall and strong from the ground. This was a new woodland, and it was pleasant in its own unique way. He thought Hedwig might have liked to see this kind of man's forest if he hadn't sent her to Ron's for the duration of their time at Berti's.

The jaguar inside him stirred. The promise of a forest called to it, but Harry banished the cat back to the secret places within him where the animal dwelled. It obeyed, but not before Harry was touched with its untamed fire. It woke enough for the manmade forest to awaken him to the desire for real trees stretching before him with ground untrod by human feet beneath his paws.

"Oh, no, this won't do, too scrawny. Where are the Douglases? Or even the Alpines, they're usually fuller, though the branches are a tad flimsier. Fullness before hardness, I say. Oh, this way. Come on, Harry." She pulled him after her by the hand. Hermione was like a creature in her natural habitat. She might not be able to touch the lioness the way he did the jaguar, but watching her made him wonder how it wouldn't be possible for her to manage. She was looking every which way, her eyes alert for what she sought, like a predator seeking prey. A heightened sense of energy emanated from her, and there was a coiled feeling of potential kinetics thrumming around her like an aura. She could leap into action any moment, swift and sure. Vitality was bleeding from her as she turned her head left then right, her hair a flowing, moving thing of gold and chestnut. She _looked_ very much the way Harry _felt_ when he was something between man and cat.

The jaguar didn't move to push at him this time, didn't attempt to take over any part of him, but he knew it was listening in the darkness, attentive and waiting… waiting.

Kimmy was hurrying between clumps of pine trees, sniffing at lower branches and weaving between clean-cut trunks after Hermione and Harry. The man running the lot hadn't been entirely thrilled with a dog accompanying his customers, but he seemed more agreement when he learned Kimmy was a girl. Apparently, he didn't want a dog hiking a leg on his wares.

They were approaching a band of tree brethren that looked the same to Harry's eyes as all the others Hermione had dismissed, but when they came closer Hermione exclaimed, "Much better! One of these will be the one, I know it." Seemed Harry was moving along too slowly for Hermione's liking, for she let go of his hand and hurried ahead.

Harry smiled and hung back. It was just as good to stand back and watch Hermione.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and by now Harry was used to the feel of it; he knew by the way the fingers curled around his shoulder, for it was the same every time, who had come up behind him. He looked back at Jake to find Hermione's father smiling too as he watched Hermione inspect each tree closely.

"Go along with whatever she says when she asks your opinion on a tree, Harry. Best thing that can be done when she gets worked up like this."

Harry chuckled. "I _have_ met her, you know."

Jake laughed and pounded Harry on the back. "So you have. Oh dear, looks as though she's moving on to phase two. I'm going to throw you to the wolves here and let you take one for the team, my boy, lord knows I've given more and then some to that cause every year since she was old enough to point and say 'that one'. I'll be by the Frasers, Hermione won't go near them. Good luck." Jake ducked away and disappeared into the greenery.

"Harry!"

Harry turned back to Hermione. She was standing in front of a tree, eyes narrowed and brow crinkled in concentration. She had her hands on her hips and her lips pursed in deep contemplation. She glanced briefly at him. "Come here and tell me what you think of this one. Where'd Dad go?"

"To look at Frasers," Harry answered as he came closer.

Hermione grunted. "Really, _those_ ugly old things? No matter, I'll get your opinion. Do you think this one's full enough?"

"Sure."

"Really?"

"Well… could be fuller."

Hermione nodded, her eyes still looking critically at the tree. "Yes, you're right. Look around for a fuller one, but the height's good, don't you think?"

"Yep. That tall, just fuller."

Hermione smiled at him, radiant and worth any manner of tree trash-talking for not being full enough. "Isn't this great?"

"Yes." That much, at least, wasn't a lie, though it had little to do with the trees.

Hermione rounded the cluster of Douglases, and as Harry watched her vanish behind the thick green branches the jaguar compelled him with a suddenly stronger presence 'give chase, pursue her'. It was the forest setting, it was getting to him.

With a suddenly wicked thought, Harry hurried after Hermione. Before rounding the trees around which she'd disappeared, he stopped and crept forward. He peered through pine needles at her tilting her head back to examine the height of another specimen. Harry smiled devilishly. The jaguar's tail was twitching in anticipation of the pounce.

Harry rushed up behind Hermione and grabbed her around the waist. She gasped in surprise and spun around. When she registered it was Harry, she scolded, "Harry!" but when she got a look at the glint in his eye, her demeanor changed on a dime. She went supple in his hold, her expression turned coquettish, and she smiled crookedly as she asked, "what's gotten into you?" Though she didn't sound like she minded.

Harry smiled, still the playful panther, and pulled her closer as he backed her up to better conceal them in the trees. Hermione's eyes lit up and her pupils widened.

"_Crazy_ idea just struck me," he whispered gruffly. He dipped down to teasingly, tenderly bite her on the jaw. He couldn't help himself, really.

"I hadn't noticed. Or did you mean something crazier than this?" she asked as she wound her arms around his neck.

Harry brought his lips to her ear and his voice was barely on his breath as he said, "Let's meet in Avalon tonight. I'm feeling… catty."

Hermione made a funny noise, something of a giggle and a deep sigh at once, and it made Harry's blood sing and his skin prickle. "We'll have to be careful…" she nuzzled her nose against his throat. "If we got caught…"

"You mean for being underage?" Harry asked lowly.

Hermione barely shook her head, distracted by his proximity. "No, not that, it's different. That won't… that won't get us in trouble with the ministry, I mean…" Harry was fingering the rivets on her jeans as one might idly turn a coin over their knuckles, and it seemed to get Hermione thoroughly out of sorts while she tried to talk. "I mean my parents… my grandmum… we have to be careful."

"We can be careful," Harry assured as he finally stole a kiss. At first Hermione moaned into his mouth, then it turned into a sound of protest. She pushed at his chest, and after a second Harry had to think she actually meant it and pulled away. "Harry," she said breathily, "my _Dad_ could catch us. Best save this for later."

"I'll hold you to that," Harry said as he dropped his hands from her.

Hermione threw a last, burning look at him. "Do," she replied, then brushed at her hair and turned back to the trees to find the right one for the family Christmas. Harry found himself liking this tree-hunting business more and more.

Hermione gave each tree in their current cluster the eye like a general inspecting her troops. Harry tagged along, the dutiful corporal, promptly agreeing with everything Hermione said. He even got good at knowing when she asked him something she really wanted him to disagree with. It was in the wrinkle of her nose and the lilt of her voice. It was kind of fun, actually, like a game they'd never played before. And when Hermione's nose was crinkled and her voice all wrong, it could be a really good laugh to see just how many ways one could insult a tree's virtues. It felt glorious to make Hermione laugh, almost the way it had felt the first time he picked up his wand at Ollivander's before the start of his first year at Hogwarts.

The unbidden thought of Ollivander put a bit of damper a on Harry's joviality, and the next tree to come under their fire got away lightly. The best Harry could do was call it a son of a birch.

By the time Jake rejoined them, eyeing Hermione's disposition as he approached like one might an unknown box sent care of the Weasley twins, Harry and Hermione were down to choosing between two trees. He noted that the two were standing together as they went back and forth on the two choices and absently holding hands.

"How's it coming, honey?" Jake asked as he came upon the pair.

Hermione turned her head to her father. "It's between these two; Harry and I like them the best. We just can't decide. Which do you think?"

When Jake glanced at Harry the younger man gave an almost imperceptible tick of his head to the left.

"Oh, I'd say that one of the left there."

Hermione grinned. "Yes, I think so, too. They're nearly identical, but that one's just got more character."

"Wonderful, it's decided then. I'll just go find the tree lot owner and take care of the details. Unless you wanted to look at the Frasers before you made your absolute final selection?"

"_Honestly_, Dad."

"Right, what was I thinking? I'll be right back. And you'll be helping me get this bugger on the top of the car, Harry." Jake walked off to find the tree lot worker.

Harry looked at their future Christmas tree standing tall and wide, leaned in toward Hermione, and whispered, "This would be a lot easier to do using magic."

"And take all the fun out of it?" Hermione countered.

"Pulled muscles and pine needle scratches fall short of my 'fun stuff' list, actually."

"Oh, but pulled muscles are best cured with a good massage."

Harry mulled that over a moment. "Excellent."

"And Gram is a fantastic masseuse, could have done it professionally if she'd had the notion."

Harry scowled at Hermione, who finally broke and laughed. Kimmy emerged from the thicket of tree trunks nearby and barked excitedly, tail wagging and tongue lolling as she panted. In her own canine way, she looked to be laughing, too.

Jake came back to find the girls in a state and Harry looking bemused. "What's going on? Did I miss something?"

"Boyfriend mistreatment," Harry answered in a faux dour tone of voice.

"Ah, damn. You'll have to give me the highlights in the car," Jake said to Hermione. That only made Hermione laugh harder. Jake couldn't hold back a smile, just for Hermione's laughter. Harry rolled his eyes, lost out and smiled as well, and moved forward to help Jake with the tree.

Fair to say it was probably the best time Harry had ever had getting picked on. It felt strangely… homey. Like he was almost a part of an actual family. Part of him was scared, but the other part of him liked it. A lot.


	47. Chapter 47

A/N: Just a word of forewarning (well, several words, but I digress) about the next chapters of "Vox Corporis". While the story is finished, there's a bit of a lag in the beta'ing department, so the next updates might be held up a bit while they're being filtered for goofs.

* * *

It was nearly midnight. The house had been quiet for hours, her parents and grandmother had gone to bed well over two hours ago, and Hermione had been lying in bed staring at the ceiling in restless anticipation since the moment her head hit the pillow. Harry's hushed words still rang in her ears, 'let's meet in Avalon'. It had raced right down her spinal column, paused a moment to pool achingly in the pit of her stomach, and made her toes curl. He'd been a bit of the jaguar when he said it, Hermione could tell from his voice and his forwardness in public and the look on his face. It did dangerous, maddening things to her when her boyfriend was part wild animal. He was… _sexier_ when he was touching the jaguar. It was silly, but true. And just then, Hermione wanted absolutely nothing more than to be the lioness to his black jaguar.

Soon, she would be.

It was making her heart race, waiting to meet him. But she couldn't sneak out just as soon as she went into her bedroom. What if her mother or father popped in for some reason? She had to give the others in the house time to fall asleep. So as she waited, she did what Hermione Granger did best. She thought.

Her hours of research into animagi were proving more useful than she'd expected. She wasn't worried about getting caught by the ministry for her and Harry turning into their animagus forms outside of Hogwarts grounds. When she was trying to find something they could do during the summer without using magic she'd been really intent on that aspect of the possible options. She became almost lawyer-like in examining the actual mechanics of how much magic would be used and how, and how it could circumvent ministry rules. The devil was in the details, as they said, but it made Hermione smarter on ministry standards of magical application than she'd been before. Ministry of Magic underage detection spells were triggered by the emission of magic by underage witches and wizards. Animagi transformations consisted completely of internally focused magic. Nothing was outwardly affected by the change, only the witch or wizard. If magic was not actually emitted, there was nothing for the ministry to detect. There were so few forms of magic that were entirely internal, and even fewer of them that underage witches and wizards were capable of performing, that the ministry had never bothered trying to set up any spells to catch them being done by children. That didn't worry her. Of course, Harry hadn't known that when he suggested it, but then the jaguar tended to make him braver, more the warrior inside than he usually let show.

The thought caught Hermione in the gut and made her squirm. She had always known the strength Harry hid behind that self-effacing, shy exterior of his, but to see it come out… quite frankly, it made her want him. It made her want to throw caution to the wind and be that cavalier with him. The two of them racing headlong and free. The demons of Harry's past could not catch them when they were beyond human. Hermione believed that in some animal part of her. The bad guys wouldn't know how to find them; they were looking for a fifteen-year-old boy with a scar and a wand.

Hermione turned on her side and looked at her clock. Midnight. She'd been waiting for the hour for the simple fact she did not think she could wait longer than that. Quietly she slipped out of bed in the dark and went to her closed door. She stood silently and listened. She wished she could touch the lioness and borrow her hearing. She would have turned, but it seemed too risky to be the lioness in her grandmother's house. Her entire life she'd been hiding her magic from her grandmother; old habits died hard.

Hermione scarcely breathed as she strained to hear any sounds of wakefulness outside her door. All was perfect quiet.

Had Harry already slipped the house? No doubt he would have used the backdoor. Was he waiting for her in Avalon, a regal black beast with blue eyes and searing intensity?

Only one way to find out.

Hermione dressed in the dark, shrugged into a jacket and slipped on her trainers, and crept to her bedroom window. Snow had rimmed the panes and frost glazed the glass. It promised to be cold outside. Hermione could have done without that; the lioness wasn't a winter animal. It liked the sun and dry grass underfoot. But neither was Harry's jaguar a snowbound creature; it was built for the jungle. They could both put up with the weather. Being the cats felt too good to be deterred by something as insignificant as snow.

Hermione carefully slid open the window. A gust of cold air, laced with swirling snowflakes, hit her in the face. Soldiering on, Hermione crawled out the window and dropped down to the ground. Wet snow soaked her trainers and the cold wrapped around her like an icy shawl. Hermione pulled her jacket tighter around her and looked around. Her eyes were adjusted to the dark already, and in truth her room had been even darker. The moon was full and cast plenty of light by which to see. The snow was spun silver and the sky black but for the faint shining rings of light that rippled out from the white moon. The stars were twinkling brilliantly, winter stars, the brightest of all. Hermione's breath made a cloud in front of her face. Her nose was already going numb.

But she moved on. She would know the way to Avalon in her sleep, though admittedly she knew it best when her starting point was the barn. But she knew Harry would not have gone that way. She would have to trust her intimate familiarity with her grandparents' farm to guide her; Harry would have touched the jaguar for his trek through the night. After what Harry had told her happened at the zoo with the lions, Harry would know better than to go near Tiggy when he was letting out part of the jaguar. The last thing they needed would be the mare screaming bloody murder and waking the entire house.

Hermione started forward through the snow, bound for the distant black trees of the forest. She wondered if Harry had already left or was he still waiting inside the house to make his own escape. Shortly, her question was answered. She found a path of footprints in the snow. With a smile, Hermione followed them. She placed her feet where he'd placed his. It would make covering their tracks easier to only brush away one set of tracks instead of two. She had to noticeably lengthen her stride to put each foot in the impression left by his.

It seemed she walked in the darkness alone for hours before she reached the trees. She glanced up and saw their ebony shadow blotting out the stars, branches outlined grey-green by the moon's glow. Hermione looked back down and continued to follow Harry's steps.

She stopped and smiled when his prints went from man to animal, footprints to paw prints. Hermione flipped her consciousness. Where Harry touched the jaguar, bled into the beast like he was a potion smoothly changing color, Hermione found herself likening her own change to a sock being turned inside-out. On one side witch, the other lioness. Hermione's center of gravity changed and pulled her down; she met the ground easily with a paw.

The night erupted around her in sounds and sights and smells. Hermione ruffled her mane and set off at a trot, still following Harry's tracks. She could smell the trace of his scent in them. He'd been here not long ago. That made her tail flick at the end and her ears perked alertly for early signs of him.

She had never seen Avalon before as she saw it now through lion eyes. It was crystallized wonder. The trees were naked and painted with icicles. The snow on the ground sparkled like some frolicking child had tossed glitter over it. The pond was iced over and palely reflected the moon. Hermione looked around. He was here, she knew it, sensed it, felt it.

A tiny noise behind her. Hermione's ears swiveled backward to catch the sound, but she had no time to turn and look before a large black cat had pounced on her. Hermione made a sound of greeting and glee and playfulness all in one as she was tackled into the snow. Harry was black as the night sky, eyes ice like the pond, scar white like the snow. He might not be a beast of the winterlands, but he looked well enough a part of them.

Harry tussled with Hermione on the ground. They tumbled a few times, paws swatting and bodies used as leverage, and within seconds they were both damp with snow. Hermione's mane was soggy with melted snow, which she didn't care for much, but when Harry's face came in close and she licked his muzzle she tasted snowflakes. That she did like.

Harry leapt off of her and stood back a pace, giving her a chance to regain her feet as he waiting eagerly, eyes intent and the tip of his tail twitching.

Hermione rose and feinted as though to try dodging him. Harry jumped to one side to block her then stopped and watched her closely. Hermione swatted a paw in his direction and sent a clump of snow flying at his face. Harry started, ears back and eyes closed, as the snow found its target.

Hermione mewled merrily and shook droplets of water from her mane.

Harry peered at her through patches of stuck snow… then he charged.

Hermione whirled and fled.

She led him once around the small pond before he caught her. He jumped and caught her around the hindquarters with his front legs and brought her to the ground. Hermione did not have time to react before he was straddling her and he'd taken the skin on the back of her neck between his teeth. A thrill of excitement coursed through her veins and she bared her teeth.

Then Harry was ripped off of her, twisting in the air and screaming in both surprise and fury as he was flung a short distance away. He landed with a solid 'thump' and sprang back to his feet, unhurt but spitting mad. Hermione jumped up and looked around for what had happened…

Only to see a diminutive house elf in thermal boxers standing in the trees and lowering her hand.

Hermione was indignant at first, senselessly frustrated and mad, but then the part of her mind forever witch snapped her back to reason. And to whom the intruder was.

Hermione hastily transformed back to human and squeaked, "Kimmy!"

Kimmy looked reproachfully at Hermione. "Just what does Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter thinks they are doing?"

Hermione glanced back at Harry. He was still the jaguar, feet braced apart as he leveled a glare at Kimmy. He tore his eyes from Kimmy to glance up at Hermione. "Harry…" she implored.

Harry started coming closer. Somewhere between where he'd been thrown and Hermione's side he became wizard again. His hair was drenched and an awful mess but he still looked rather peeved at Kimmy for tossing him like a rag doll.

Kimmy was unimpressed by Harry's displeasure. "Kimmy sees the animaguses have found you both."

"Uh… yeah…" Hermione stammered, "I'm so sorry, we should have told you…"

Kimmy huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Kimmy is not being mad about not being _told_. Whats were you thinkings?!"

"Why did you throw me?" Harry asked, annoyed. Hermione glanced at him, astounded he could still be upset when they quite likely had bigger problems on their hands.

"Yous told Kimmy animaguses was for Mister Harry Potter's safety. Your animaguses are for a _very_ serious purpose, not for play!"

"You helped Headmaster Dumbledore and his brother become animagi just for fun," Harry countered caustically.

"_Harry_," Hermione hissed, and she turned to Kimmy. The little elf looked betrayed. Hermione dropped to her knees in the snow and studied the house elf. "You're right, Kimmy, that's why we asked you to help us learn how to be animagi. That's _why_ we became animagi. Harry and I were just… we spend time in our animagus forms learning how our cat bodies move, figuring out just what we can do in our animal forms. We need to know how far we can push our limits if we ever have to fight You Know Who."

"Kimmy's thinking you won't be doing _that_ to You Know Who."

Hermione felt herself blush beet red. At least it warmed her face up a bit, to look on the bright side of things.

"Learning how it is being cats isn't bad," Kimmy said in a slightly calmer voice, "but it's _very_ bad to sneak off and try to give Kimmy the slip! Kimmy's here to protect you, but she can't do that if yous are going to be running off. Bad people could find you, even here."

Hermione blanched. She hadn't even _thought_ of that, but of course Kimmy was absolutely right. She didn't want to think it possible that Death Eaters or even Voldemort himself would show up at her grandmother's house, but there was always the _chance_, the very reason Kimmy was with them.

"Maybe we can take care of ourselves," Harry answered, though by the sound of his voice he'd calmed down somewhat.

Kimmy looked up at Harry, unruffled. "Kimmy knows how it is. The animal gets in your thinking, but what you think isn't really being true. Death Eaters can curse a cat just as they can curse a boy."

Hermione's heart went cold for a moment at the thought. How had she not even thought of that? She thought of everything. She should have seen the folly in trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, including Kimmy's. How foolish had they been to evade their own protector? Stupid. Stupid and reckless.

"We weren't thinking, and for that we're very sorry. We'll never leave without you again, Kimmy, we promise," Hermione said.

Kimmy turned her gaze back at Hermione, seemed to measure the sincerity of her words, then she glanced up at Harry. What she saw must have been convincing enough, because the house elf nodded. "That's good." Kimmy cocked her head at them both, "Yous two are being a real soggy mess," she said and she snapped her fingers. The water in their clothes and hair and on their skin evaporated away in a pleasant heating charm. In a matter of seconds they were dry. The winter night was much less biting when she wasn't sopping wet, Hermione noted gratefully. Kimmy cast a similar spell to melt away the cat prints in Avalon.

"We should be going back to the house now," Kimmy said, and without giving them a chance to argue she turned back into a dog and led the way into the surrounding trees, in the direction of the house.

Hermione glanced over at Harry. He met her eyes then surrendered with a half-shrug. He stepped forward, took her hand, and together they set off after the Chihuahua. Hermione sidled closer to Harry for the warmth and comfort his body provided as they left the moonlit sanctum of Avalon behind.

* * *

From the dubious safety of the kitchen, the adults peered out into the living room with worrisome looks on their faces. Miranda shook her head and whispered to her companions, "He'll never hold out. He's going to crack."

"Harry," Hermione said in a no-nonsense tone of voice, "put that wreath above the window. Make sure it's straight. The largest holly goes on the very bottom."

"All right." Harry grabbed the green and red wreath in question and dutifully took it to the window.

"He's been at it for five hours straight. That's inhuman," Jake remarked. When Hermione turned from her task of decorating the tree Jake ducked back, lest Hermione catch sight of him and snare him in a sudden moment of domineering, yuletide inspiration.

"The poor boy," Berti said somberly as she oversaw the baking of her holiday treats.

"How's that?" Harry asked as he inspected the hung wreath above the window.

"Tilt it just a tad to the left. No, not quite that far. Perfect! Now could you come help me with this string of lights? I'm afraid I'll cross the racers and that would just look all wrong; I need someone to hold it out from the next row of lights down while I find a branch that will do on the other side of the tree."

"Sure." Harry went over to Hermione and held the string of lights as instructed.

"No one can take this much at once," Jake bemoaned. "He's valiant to try, but this is our _Hermione_ we're talking about. She can break the strongest of men without breaking a sweat."

"He's just a _boy_," Miranda breathed in horror.

"Can you give me any more slack on your end?"

"I'll see… how's that?"

"Great, hold it there."

"We should do something," Berti offered up in a hushed tone of voice.

Jake and Miranda looked miserably at one another, but in complete agreement.

"Go, Jake."

"Me?! But…" he looked at his wife and his shoulders sagged. "Yes… yes, you're right. Once more into the breech," Jake took a breath and moved toward the living room. It was bedecked in holiday splendor. The tree was decorated with lights and multi-colored glass balls and tinsel. Garland wrapped every conceivable target in sight. An elaborate, exquisitely detailed nativity scene was set up on the top of a china cabinet. Lights surrounded windows and doorways. The mantel sported three ceramic reindeer and a cherubic little elf with pointy ears and dressed in red and green. Jake thought 'if only they knew' as Kimmy, in Chihuahua form, circled the activities around the tree. Brightly wrapped presents were stacked off to one side near the couch, awaiting a completed tree to rest beneath. Open boxes of decorations were everywhere, half of them already empty. Harry and Hermione were adding the last string of twinkling lights to the tree. Any more lights and they would have airplanes landing in the pasture. Hermione was stretching to reach the branch she'd set her sights on; Harry was craning around the full limbs to watch her as he held the string in place as she requested.

With a hooking toss Hermione lassoed the branch she sought and the string held in place. She stepped back in satisfaction. "There! You can let go the string, Harry, I think that's going to do it." Hermione stepped back to inspect the tree, returned to grab Harry's arm and draw him back to stand a pace away with her, and asked, "What do you think?"

"I think it's really pretty."

"We won't _really_ be able to tell if we're missing any spots until it gets dark, but if you squint your eyes you can get an idea what it will look like." Hermione squinted at the tree, looking like she was trying to win a grade-school scowling contest with it. Harry laughed then followed her example, making his eyes little more than slits as he looked at the Christmas tree. Hermione's hands were still wrapped around Harry's arm, and she gave it a squeeze and pat of approval then opened her eyes back up. "Well, next comes the tree skirt… I'll go fetch it."

"Okay."

When Hermione left Harry's side Jake saw his chance. He darted in, came up behind Harry, and touched the younger man on the shoulder. When Harry turned his head Jake said in a quiet voice, "I can spell you if you want, son."

Harry looked up at him, puzzled. "Huh?"

He gave the boy a supportive squeeze on the shoulder, "Look, I know Hermione can get a bit… overbearing when it comes to this Christmas decorating business. We all know; no one's expecting you to keep this up like you have. You've done an impressive job already. Above and beyond, no question about that. But I can take over if you need to duck out for a while."

Harry frowned, uncomprehending.

Unbelievable though it was, Jake began to get the first niggling of a very impossible suspicion. "You must be getting a bit worn of all this, right?"

Harry's face was completely sincere as it went from confused to happy in the span of a second. He smiled. "No, this is great."

Jake gaped. "Honestly?"

Before Harry could reply Hermione was back with the snowy white and glittering gold tree skirt in hand. "Here, take this end, Harry, I'll do one side and you can do the other; we'll meet up in the back."

"All right."

Hermione looked up at Jake. "Dad? You want to help?"

'Danger, retreat, retreat,' his brain screamed. "Looks like you and Harry have everything pretty well in hand. Would you say so, Harry?" He'd give the teenager one more chance to wave the white flag and call in reinforcements.

"I think we have everything under control," Harry replied, and when he looked to Hermione for agreement she beamed and nodded.

Jake looked at Harry with a newfound sense of respect and awe. "Well, if you're sure you two have it taken care of, I'll just be in the kitchen helping Miranda and Berti." Before either of them could think of the folly in that remark, Jake high-tailed it back to the kitchen.

He was met with a disapproving, nearly aghast mother and daughter. Miranda spoke first, "You just left him?"

"I _tried_ to pull him out, but he's _enjoying_ himself," Jake answered defensively.

Miranda's mouth hung open. "He can't mean that; he just doesn't want to hurt Hermione's feelings… _surely_."

The kitchen conference was interrupted by laughter. In the living room, Harry and Hermione were both laughing. Harry was bent over on his knees struggling to disentangle himself from his jumper, which was snagged on a branch and had been pulled up over his head when he moved to back out from laying the skirt under the tree. Amid the jostling as Harry tried to gently wrest free, a blue orb dislodged from its appointed branch and fell to land with a 'clink' on Harry's covered head. Hermione was in stitches as she shuffled over to where he was blindly trying to find the branch that had snared him. She leaned over him and freed his jumper from the low-hanging limb. Harry reached down to brace one hand on the floor as he righted himself… only to place his hand on the ball that had beaned him. It rolled out from under him and Harry went down. Hermione, in the process of picking pine needles from his sweater, was caught off-guard by the sudden lurch and went down with him. She landed on top of him and Harry made an 'oof' sound before they were both laughing again. Kimmy yipped and barked and wagged her tail while Harry and Hermione got up and moved apart. Harry at last put his jumper back to rights over his torso. His hair was more frightful than usual and Hermione began to brush at it with her fingers while Harry looked around for the guilty glass ball. Kimmy retrieved it and looked decidedly amused as she sat before the two teens with the hook for the orb between her teeth.

Miranda and Berti looked wonderingly at one another.

"I do think Jake's right; I really think he _is_ having fun," Berti said, though it seemed just as stunning a revelation to her as it did to everyone in the kitchen.

"Well, I never thought I'd see the day," Miranda mused aloud in an amazed voice.

Berti smirked. "I'd say the girl's found her perfect match. Hermione had best hang on to that one."

Jake glanced in at the pair to see Harry helping Hermione to her feet… and the boy's hands lingered on her just long enough for anyone with eyes to see it plain as the sun in the sky (even someone who could be as dense at times to that kind of thing as Jake Granger). "I don't think that's really going to be a problem," he commented, and he was surprisingly okay with it now. Maybe it was the spirit of Christmas melting the last of his reservations. Or perhaps the discovery that Harry could survive a Hermione Granger Christmas with a smile and a laugh had done the trick. That was no commonplace deed, and not to be done by your average teenage boy.

"Oh!" Miranda suddenly said, "I can't believe I almost forgot. I'll be right back." With that, she crossed through the living room, giving the kids a cheerful wave as she passed before disappearing into the hall toward the bedrooms. Hermione broke from Harry's side to paw through one of the open boxes of remaining decorations while Harry took the blue ball from Kimmy and replaced it on the tree… mindful to put it in the spot from whence it had obviously come. The boy was smart, Jake credited him that. Hermione would have noticed a misplaced ornament in a second.

Miranda came back to the living room a minute later with a cloth bundle in her hands. "Harry?"

The boy turned.

Miranda approached him with a gentle smile. "I know it's a bit early, but I wanted to go ahead and give you one of your presents now." She held the cloth package out to him. Harry, curious, took it and unfolded the material. He went completely still as he looked down at the Christmas stocking in his hands.

Hermione's furtive decorating energy vanished and Jake saw her become eerily like Miranda in the way her presence and smile turned serene as she left the box and joined Harry. He blinked up at her when she was at his side, then he looked up at Miranda.

"Hermione and I picked it up for you while we were out shopping in London. We took it to a seamstress and had it monogrammed. I hope you like it."

Harry was clearly stunned by the gift. He looked down at the stocking again and ran his fingers over the stitching that spelled out 'HARRY' as though it had been put there by a power more wondrous than the magic he knew so well. Jake didn't have to be a genius to recognize from the boy's reaction that he'd never had his own Christmas stocking before. That knowledge sat ill with Jake. He began to understand better the indignation Miranda felt toward the young man's childhood. Or maybe it was more accurate to say he'd come around to Harry enough for it to really bother him.

"I… I love it. Thank you, Miranda," Harry said in a tight voice.

"You're welcome, dear," she answered and stepped in to place a kiss on Harry's forehead, just as she'd done on several occasions before. Harry might even be almost used to it by now.

Harry surprised them all by moving in and wrapping his arms around Miranda. It was the first time he'd initiated a hug with anyone other than Hermione. He returned them when he found himself on the receiving end, but he didn't hug first. Miranda was surprised, but pleasantly so, and in as little as a second to allow herself to be startled by the unprecedented action she was hugging him back.

When Miranda and Harry parted Hermione touched his arm tenderly. "Let's put the stockings over the fireplace." At Harry's mute nod, Hermione scampered over to the boxes and dug around until she pulled out the rest of the family's stockings. Harry stood rooted in his spot still tracing the letters of his name in the top of the stocking Miranda had given him.

Miranda discreetly made her way back to the kitchen while Hermione hung the stockings. First 'BERTI', then 'MIRI', then 'JAKE', then 'HERMIONE', and then Hermione had Harry hand over the stocking in his hand. Hermione placed it on the nail next to her own stocking. When Hermione stepped back to stand abreast with Harry, 'BERTI', 'MIRI', 'JAKE', 'HERMIONE', and 'HARRY' lined the mantel beneath the elf forever tempting reindeer with treats.

Jake watched Hermione wordlessly reach down and take Harry's hand. Harry's reciprocating grip was telling in its fierceness, even from a room away.

"You'd think they might go on and kiss already," Berti mumbled, just loud enough for those in the kitchen to hear.

"_Mum_!" Miranda groaned. Jake rather agreed with his wife on that one. He might be fine with Harry dating his daughter, but that didn't mean he wanted to see them giving each other a dental exam with their tongues. That was almost too horrifying to imagine.

"Oh, please," Berti scoffed, "you think they aren't doing it when you're not around? Wouldn't surprise me to learn that the joke going around that private school of theirs is that there isn't a person who remembers what their faces look like, what with them being pressed together all the time."

Standing closely side by side as they were, it was no trouble for Hermione to cant her head and rest her temple against Harry's shoulder. If Berti's remarks were left out, it might have been sort of cute in an 'ah, young love' sort of way, but Berti's vivid commentary had well and fully ruined any 'awww' reaction Jake might have been even _slightly_ inclined to have.

"Hmpf," Berti grunted at the sight of the pair. "Snogging like crazy, I'm telling you." While Jake cringed and hoped he didn't wake in a cold sweat because of a nightmare involving the ravaged virtue of his little girl, Berti pulled a batch of cookies from the oven and gave them an approving nod when she judged their goldenness.

Berti turned to look toward the living room again. "Hermione, Harry, you two take a break from decorating and come here and have some cookies; they're only fresh from the oven once."

Hermione took her head from Harry's shoulder and both teens turned to look toward the kitchen at their names being called. When Hermione caught on to the mention of Christmas cookies she beamed and started toward the kitchen, conveniently dragging Harry along as their hands were still entwined. Not that Harry was really planting his feet and digging his heels in to fight her.

"They smell wonderful," Hermione said with an appreciative deep inhale when she came into the kitchen. Harry's appreciation was in his eyes as he turned his gaze on Hermione's exultant expression.

"Well, while you're appreciating the ambiance mind setting out some plates, dear? We're all like to burn our fingers elsewise," Berti instructed as she dug through a drawer for a spatula.

Hermione let go of Harry's hand to see to the table arrangements.

Harry moved toward Berti at the oven. "Let me help you, Gram." He started to reach out with one hand for the pot holder on Berti's left hand.

Berti turned sharply from her hunt for a spatula to swat Harry on the hand. It wasn't a malicious strike, Jake had been swatted similarly by Berti before when his fingers were in bowls and dishes in which they didn't belong, but Harry didn't react quite the same as Jake always had to it. As though taken to with a belt, Harry jumped back and immediately withdrew his hand as he might from a viper. He looked up at Berti with surprised, wounded eyes that seemed to question how she could betray him so blithely. For a second, Jake felt really bad for Harry all over again.

Berti's next touch followed quickly on the first, and it was as different as night from day. She gently patted Harry on the shoulder. Harry was tensed, as though unable to formulate an appropriate reaction other than to freeze like an animal caught in the headlights of a car.

"After all the work you've done decorating today, I'll not have you lifting a finger in this kitchen," Berti said in a playfully stern voice. "Is that understood?"

Harry waited a beat. He gauged Berti for a weighty few seconds, then he allowed a wary smile and some of the rigidity left his stance. "Okay."

"Hey," Hermione squawked from the table. Jake glanced at his daughter. She bore the brunt of her weight on one leg, her hips canted, and one arm akimbo with hand on her waist. She had the look of affronted and ignorant to the undercurrents of the interaction between Harry and Berti, but her eyes told a different story. The same tale told in the line of her mouth and the knit of her brow. She'd seen Berti teasingly slap Harry on the hand, and she'd seen Harry's knee-jerk response. But she didn't put a spotlight on it. "_I've_ been decorating and you're putting _me_ to work," she complained for the sake of making things normal again.

"Yes, but you draw energy straight from garland and tinsel like some queer Christmas plant," was Berti's rejoinder. Miranda offered a chuckle to help set things back to right. Harry seemed to be winding back down about half as quickly as he'd been wound up. And since Jake knew Harry fairly well, he knew that was bouncing back fast. It was good to see the boy understand that Berti wasn't going to hurt him.

Berti took off her oven mitt and tousled Harry's hair…. and his smile stayed in place the entire time. It may have even been half sincere. "Go on and have a seat, Harry. I expect you to eat enough cookies to take you to the brink of illness."

Harry almost laughed as he broke from Berti's side to drift toward the table, much more relaxed than a mere minute ago. "Yes, Gram."

"That's terrible, Mum," Miranda quipped.

"_That's_ what the holidays are all about, though the way you and Ben were always sneaking sweets you'd think I wouldn't need to tell _you_ that."

Miranda feigned indignance. "I _never_… Ben and I were perfect angels."

"Don't get me wrong," Berti continued as she finally found the spatula, "I'm just tickled pink you two didn't go professional and turn out to be pick-pockets or burglars. You had the magic fingers for it, you know. Craftiest set of sneaks I've ever seen."

Jake joined Harry and Hermione at the table, anxiously awaiting a warm cookie. "Well now, how do you know she's hasn't made it a career? Maybe she just _tells_ you she's a dentist."

Berti expertly filled a large plate with cookies. "Ha! Miranda was never good at lying to me; I saw right through her and Ben every time.

"Nothing flies by this old bird; I'm sharp as a tack."

Harry and Hermione, sitting next to one another, exchanged a look and a conspiratorial grin. Jake had to surpress the urge to smile himself.

It was just as well Berti continue to think so.


	48. Chapter 48

A/N: I've finally broken up the remainder of this fic into chapters for posting purposes, and since many have expressed curiosity as to the final count I can now tell you that "Vox Corporis" is 68 chapters long.

* * *

Sleeping on the couch at Berti's had a strange set of benefits the way Harry Potter saw it. The first would seem to disguise itself as a drawback to bedding down in the living room, and no doubt most people would see only the negative aspects of such an arrangement. He'd only had one morning to judge, but it had the essence of a pattern, something that could repeat day after day _ad infinitum_ without deviating appreciably from a standard formula.

Berti was an early riser; Harry was a light sleeper. Though he did relish indulging in the opportunity to sleep in, he didn't mind being woken early in the morning by Berti meandering her way into her own kitchen. She was quiet in considerate efforts not to wake him; Harry just wasn't able to sleep through her added presence in the common areas of the house. Not that such a tendency toward awareness of his surroundings surprised him. It had taken him most of first year at Hogwarts to actually start sleeping soundly while sharing a room with four other boys. It required some readjusting of his 'programming'. At the Dursleys' the rest of the house waking usually meant the start of his daily ordeal of being the unwanted, mistreated freak. Vernon dragging him out by his hair or shirt collar, Petunia slamming on the cupboard door and demanding he start breakfast, Dudley pounding on the stairs overhead to rain dust upon him. That alertness to change seemed to reset at Berti's just as it did in every new place he happened to seek sleep. It meant when she woke so did he. But Harry didn't get up then. Not just then. He'd lie bundled up in his blankets on the couch, eyes closed and in a light doze, and listen to Berti move around the kitchen. When she thought he was sleeping and wasn't apt to ask him weird questions or make embarrassing comments, Harry didn't mind Hermione's grandmother that much. And she did make fantastic cookies.

Miranda and Jake would rise an hour or two after Berti. Harry especially liked listening to them. He'd grown undeniably comfortable around, and even attached to, Hermione's mother and father, more than he would have thought possible. Miranda's voice was soothing and comforting, Jake's reassuring and pleasant. Sometimes, once they were up and milling around, Harry would slip back into sleep to the sound of their voices. He felt safer with them on the watch. Apparently he faked sleep well, because Miranda never caught on to the fact he was conscious when she'd pad over to readjust his blankets or carefully brush aside a wild lock of hair on his brow. It was a battle not to smile a little when she did that, though. He'd come to accept that Miranda really did care about him, and that was unfathomably peaceful.

Then Hermione would wake up and come into the living room. That was when the morning was perfect. Harry could fairly wallow in lying in the middle of the happy family, eyes still resolutely closed, listening to their voices and tracking their quiet movement through the house. He could not imagine ever tiring of that. It was what he knew he'd been missing all his life. This might not be his family, but he'd take their sounds and mornings as his own while he lay with eyes shut on the living room couch. He doubted any of them would mind if he asked for that much. It was a small, trite luxury to them. To him, it was precious and absolutely priceless.

Christmas Eve morning unfolded like the morning before had. Berti was up early and making coffee in the kitchen while Harry listened with half an ear as he still lingered in the place between sleep and wakefulness. She puttered around in the kitchen alone for around an hour when Miranda woke and joined her. Harry heard Miranda shuffle into the kitchen from the hallway and whisper, "Morning, Mum."

"Morning, Miri. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Sure, but I'll get it, don't get up."

The opening and closing of the cabinets and the clink of glass on glass followed.

"Shall we go ahead and start on some of the pies for tomorrow? Best to not save everything to be done at the last moment, you know."

"Let's wait a bit longer," Miranda answered softly, "I wouldn't want to accidentally wake Harry with our ruckus."

A silence befell the mother and daughter.

"He's been mistreated, hasn't he?" Berti asked pointedly.

Harry resisted frowning as he feigned sleep. He cared for this idle morning chit-chat less than the other topics they'd taken up yesterday.

"Yes," Miranda answered sadly. "I don't know how badly; I've never asked him. I don't think he'd care to talk about it, to be honest, Harry doesn't seem the type. I'm waiting for him to broach it first. And if he never does, then that's fine."

"His parents?"

A disquiet surged through Harry and he just barely stopped himself from rising to defend his mother and father. They would never have treated him as horribly as the Dursleys did. No. They'd died for him. They'd loved him.

"No. His parents died when he was a baby. He was taken in by his aunt and uncle."

"Some caretakers," Berti grunted grumpily. "I thought something was amiss when I was funning with him yesterday. Jumped like a skittish colt when I swatted him."

He hadn't meant to do that. Really, he hadn't, it just happened. A reflex. He couldn't help it.

"He has scars…" Miranda trailed off sorrowfully.

A scar from Wormtail's knife, from a dragon's spiked tail, from Quidditch falls and scrapes with Dementors and a scar from surviving the killing curse. He could never explain those rightfully to Berti, and he questioned whether he had the will to explain them fully to Miranda. But he also had scars from the Dursleys.

"Would that he'd gone to a loving home," Miranda finished with a sigh.

"Oh, I think he finally has."

Harry's heart was in his throat. If his eyes were open, he was stricken to think that they might be prickling with moisture. He would not cry. He wouldn't permit it. He'd faced Voldemort and he'd stayed strong. He wouldn't be brought to tears by simple conversation. He swallowed thickly to banish his emotions.

He was spared having to hear any more about his unfortunate upbringing being discussed between Hermione's mother and grandmother when Jake joined them. Talk turned to the mundane. Shop talk from Miranda and Jake's orthodontists' business back home, the state of the farm left to Berti to tend, the weather, then a collective perusal of the newspaper. Harry dozed and listened, sliding back into a state of contentment.

Closer to the noon hour than that of early morning, Miranda and Berti began to set about arrangements for cooking the Christmas day pies (the ones that could be tucked away in the refrigerator, anyway). They were quiet, but it made no matter as Harry was already awake. Even still, he continued to fake sleep to be a fly on the wall to a portrait of normalcy that he'd been so long denied.

All of Harry's earlier unease melted away when Hermione came out of the hallway.

"Morning, everybody," Hermione collectively greeted her family, in a far merrier mood than she tended to be just after waking up. Might have been fair to say the fact it was Christmas Eve day had a great deal to do with her disposition. Harry almost smiled into his pillow to hear the happiness in her voice.

"Good morning, sweetie," Miranda replied on the adults' behalf.

"Well, now," Jake said in an only slightly hushed tone of voice, "if we could roust Harry off the couch we might be able to make a proper start of the day here. I swear, that boy sleeps like he's taken a hit of the happy gas."

Harry could almost _hear_ Hermione roll her eyes. "I'll go wake him."

In a matter of moments, Hermione's voice issued forth again, gentle and insanely close, right above Harry. "I know you're awake," she whispered so that the adults in the kitchen wouldn't hear.

Harry smiled and opened his eyes. Though she was blurry, he could see Hermione leaning over the back of the couch, her arms crossed on the cushion and her chin atop her folded arms. She was smiling down at him, clad in her pajamas, her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail.

Harry reached over his head to grope on the end table for his glasses. Once he put them on Hermione jumped into focus and he could make out the glimmer of amusement dancing in her eyes. "You know, you keep doing that and sooner or later you'll hear something you really rather wouldn't," she teased softly.

He wasn't the least bit surprised that Hermione would see through his ruse. "I can't really imagine Gram's going to say anything when she thinks I'm asleep that's worse than the stuff she says when I'm awake," he replied.

"Well, if you're proven wrong don't come crying to me about being traumatized, and don't say I didn't warn you," Hermione said, reached down to jostle his shoulder, and stood. "Come on, then."

Harry tossed off the covers and got up off the couch while Hermione ambled back into the kitchen. Harry folded the blanket he'd used, laid it over the back of the couch, crammed his pillow in a corner, then went down the hall to use the bathroom and brush his teeth. When he came back to the kitchen everyone was sitting at the table munching on muffins. Crookshanks was crunching contently on his cat food in a bowl on the floor off to one side of the kitchen. Kimmy, posing as Harry's faithful pet Chihuahua, was sitting on Hermione's lap as Hermione fed the dog by hand a muffin from her plate.

The seat beside Hermione had been left open and Harry made a beeline.

Just as Harry was heading toward the empty seat Berti looked up at him and said, "Harry, Hermione's going to spoil your dog rotten."

Harry glanced over at Hermione, who returned his look and smiled in their shared secret about Kimmy's true nature. Spoiled _dog_, indeed. Kimmy licked her lips and pawed at Hermione to give her another bite of muffin.

Harry sat down and smirked. "Kimmy likes being spoiled. 'Fraid to say I'm not any better about telling her she can't have what she wants." Kimmy looked toward Harry and her lips appeared to pull back and imitate a smile as best she could manage while still in dog form.

Jake and Miranda were hiding smiles, but Berti merely grunted.

Kimmy finished off the last of her muffin and jumped down off Hermione's lap. She left the kitchen at a trot, perhaps to duck into her own abode (which Harry felt certain she'd conjured in one of the house's many closets; he suspected the closet in Hermione's bedroom). Harry didn't ask. He respected Kimmy's right to come and go as she pleased. She was a free elf, after all.

Berti looked toward the wall clock and said suddenly, "Oh, gracious, look at the time. The McCormicks will be expecting us in an hour and a half."

"Who?" Harry asked and glanced toward Hermione. She looked beleaguered as she explained, "The McCormicks are old friends of Gram and Gramp. Every year we go to their house Christmas Eve day for a late lunch."

"Oh." Sounded innocuous enough. Harry studied Hermione a moment. She looked harried and worn by the prospect of visiting the McCormicks. Confused, he looked to Miranda and Jake. Miranda was the one to offer a smile and an explanation for Hermione's apparent distaste for this particular family tradition. "Mister and Missus McCormick are a dreadfully sweet old couple, wonderful people, but at Christmastime their rather impressive collection of grandchildren are about, and… well, Hermione's never cared much for their company."

"They're brutish, ignorant buffoons," Hermione mumbled sourly.

Berti harrumphed.

Jake chuckled. "I have to side with my daughter there, I'm afraid. There's not any of those grandkids much brighter than a potato. The lot of the McCormick kids tended toward marrying the… less intellectually inclined, shall we say, as it is the season of giving and kindness."

"Their idea of fun is goading the dogs to fighting… or doing _other things_, and every year I'm expected to spend the afternoon with them."

"Be that as it may," Berti conceded, "Mildred and Anthony are dear friends and they'd be terribly disappointed if we didn't come over. I know their brood is a bit uncouth, but it's only for one afternoon."

"I know," Hermione said in a dejected voice as she literally seemed to sag in her chair. Harry considered Hermione and found himself fixated on the difference between the Hermione in front of him now and the smiling Hermione who'd woken him only moments ago. He didn't like the change, and set about as best he could think to rectify it.

"Gram? Couldn't Hermione and I stay here while you three went to visit the McCormicks?" Harry asked. "They don't even know me, so it's not as though they'll be sorry I didn't show. And if these grandkids are that awful, how much can they miss Hermione? I mean, they're not exactly in her league. She probably just spoils their fun with the dogs."

"I really do, they always tell me what a sore bear I am," Hermione put in hopefully, though she looked doubtful of the potential success of Harry's intentions. Harry suspected she'd tried begging off going to the McCormicks in years past and been rebuffed. But if she didn't want to go, then he'd try to get her out of it.

Berti eyed the pair. "Hmmm… I don't know…"

It was Jake who spoke up to champion their cause. "Well, you know, they're not exactly children anymore."

"Well, that's true…" Berti mused aloud, "halfway to sixteen, the both of you, isn't that right?"

Harry and Hermione nodded.

Miranda turned to her mother to plead their case. "They were home alone a lot during the summer and there was never any trouble with it. I don't see why they can't stay behind if they really don't want to go."

Berti narrowed her eyes at the both of them before making her decision. "Yes, I guess that would be all right."

Hermione brightened at once. "Thanks, Gram!"

"Oh, dear, I never envied you stuck with that pack of hooligans that Mildred and Anthony call their grandchildren. I know they're wretched, but that's the way of things, isn't it?

"But if you and Harry are going to be here alone for the better part of the day I'll have you know that there'll be no fooling around in our absence."

Harry instantly felt his face burn red. Hermione's was a flushed shade to match. "_Gram_!" she yelped.

Berti was undeterred. "We've put out the nativity set, and it's just not right to have carnal knowledge in front of the son of god, even if he is plaster and paint."

Hermione groaned, put her elbows on the table, and covered her scarlet face with her hands in mortification. Harry was wondering how strange it would look if he just jumped up and ran from the room. He could try to find Kimmy's hidden home and barge in for asylum. She'd harbor him, he was fairly certain.

"Mum, _please_," Miranda sounded just as put out as her daughter. "I'm sure we don't have to worry."

"Oh, you think not?" Berti lifted an eyebrow and that wicked playfulness was in her tone and eyes. That was never a good sign. Harry was eyeing the exits.

"Kimmy will be here to keep an eye on them," Miranda stated with confidence.

"Hmph! Harry's dog? Honey, a dog's the coconspirator of its master nine times out of ten. That's what makes dogs so great."

"We trust this dog," Jake tossed in. When Berti glanced his way, Jake shrugged. "Call it a gut feeling."

Berti held up her hands in surrender… and also as though to wipe her hands of the consequences. Hermione peeked around her hand toward Harry and offered a sincere expression of profuse apology. Harry gave a wan smile to let her know he didn't hold her responsible for her grandmother's tongue.

With that, Berti, Miranda, and Jake rose from the table to get ready for the yearly visit to the McCormicks. Within twenty minutes, Harry and Hermione saw them out at the door. At the foot of the porch steps Berti turned back to them, and Harry braced for something terribly embarrassing, but all she said was, "Don't forget to feed Tiggy."

Harry was relieved it was something so tame from Hermione's grandmother. "I won't." He'd fed the horse yesterday (a chore that was usually Jake's during the Christmas visit, but since he'd been deemed no longer among the 'young people' crowd he abdicated the duty to Harry), so he'd already been instructed on where to find the hay and grain and how much to give of each.

"Have a good time," Miranda said in parting as the three-person party headed toward the car.

"But not _too_ good a time!" Berti called back without turning to look in their direction. Jake, Miranda, and Berti piled into the car and were gone.

As soon as Harry and Hermione were back inside the house and the front door was closed Harry turned to Hermione and said what had been on his mind since he sat down with the family at the kitchen table. "Your grandmother is something else."

Hermione winced. "I'm _so_ sorry about that. Mum always said Gram gave Dad a right awful teasing when they were dating, but I didn't really understand how bad it must have been until now."

Harry reflected on the relationship he'd seen between Jake and Berti since they'd arrived at the farm. It could hardly be categorized as the same level of uncomfortable that his own interactions with Berti rated. "She's pretty good with Jake now. Maybe I just need to soldier through for a while then she'll ease up on me."

"Oh, I'm sure she will. She does like you, Harry; she wouldn't keep it to herself if she didn't. I think she's testing you or something, though there's really no need." Hermione turned and headed toward the kitchen and Harry followed a step behind. Suddenly Hermione stopped in her tracks. Harry nearly ran into her before he came to a halt. "I almost forgot," Hermione said before Harry could ask what was up, then she turned to face Harry and put her arms around his neck and gave him a hug. "_Thank you_ for getting me out of that dreadful lunch! You're the best boyfriend in the world."

Harry was rather bashful at that, there were a lot of boyfriends in the entire world, after all. It didn't stop him from returning the hug, though. "Umm… you're welcome. Must be pretty awful, those McCormick kids."

Hermione stepped away. "You cannot begin to imagine. It's like having fifteen Crabbes and Goyles for company."

"Ouch. Well, in that case, I figure I rate a kiss for rescuing you."

Hermione's eyes glittered brightly. "Do you now?"

Harry grinned. "Yeah, I think so."

"Well, I think that can be arranged." Hermione rose to her tiptoes and touched her lips to his. Harry just started to put his arm around her to tug her closer when Hermione pulled away. Harry blinked, bewildered. "Wha… that's it?" He pouted.

Hermione laughed. It was such a wonderful sound. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder and Harry followed it to rest his eyes on the nativity scene on the china cabinet. Harry frowned. "You're kidding. It's not like he's going to tell on us."

Hermione danced her fingertips absently over Harry's neck, which was really not kind considering she'd nixed the idea of snogging. Why wind him up if they couldn't do anything about it? Hermione looked up into his eyes and smiled rather mysteriously. "You're a wizard and I'm a witch, we of all people should know anything's possible."

That was true enough. "But for _kissing_?"

"Better safe than sorry." Hermione returned casually and started back toward the kitchen.

"You know," Harry said as he followed after her, "I don't know that I've ever held to that notion."

"Ha! I know you don't. You're more of the 'let's jump in headfirst and do some fast thinking on the way down' sort."

"Well, I don't know that I'm quite _that_ rash."

"Sometimes you are. Don't worry, it's part of your allure."

"It is?"

"So long as I'm there to help pull you out of any mess you fall into, it is."

Which had to be nearly every time, because Hermione was always there.

When they came into the kitchen they found Kimmy, changed back to her house elf form, sitting on the counter top wearing a pair of boxer shorts with a sleigh pulled by tiny reindeer flying around the midnight sky fashioned underwear. She was nibbling on a Christmas cookie cheerfully and grinned when Harry and Hermione came into the room. "Cares for a cookie, Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter?"

Hermione smiled. "No thanks, Kimmy. Sorry about my grandmum earlier being a bit rude to you."

"Oh no, not rude, just muggle. Kimmy doesn't mind the muggles."

Harry ran an errant hand over the clean countertop before he leaned back against it and rested the heels of his hands on the edge. "So… what shall we do while everyone's away?"

Hermione opened her mouth to make a suggestion, but Kimmy beat her to it. The house elf put aside her half-eaten cookie and said, "Kimmy thinks Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter should be telling Kimmy about being animagi."

They hadn't had the opportunity to give Kimmy any details the night that she followed them to Avalon and read them the riot act for sneaking off without her supervision.

Hermione looked abashed all over again to be reminded of their faux pas. She walked over to one of the kitchen chairs and sat down in it sideways so she could face Harry and Kimmy at the counter. "Oh, yes, I suppose we really should. We're very sorry for not telling you that we'd done it. We should have. It was wrong of us."

Kimmy gave a dismissive shrug. "Lovie dovies have lovies' secrets, Kimmy knows that. Kimmy's not being mad about that."

Harry thought the description 'lovie dovies' was a bit much, but he didn't say anything. It was better than some of the things Berti would have come up with to call them.

Hermione gave a tiny smile. "Well, we first changed a few weeks after term began, at the first full moon once we were back at Hogwarts."

Kimmy's eyes widened slightly in astonishment. "Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter are changing on the first try?"

Hermione nodded.

Harry glanced at the elf. "Headmaster Dumbledore and his brother didn't change the first time?" It sounded far-fetched to think anything would take more than one attempt with someone like Albus Dumbledore.

"Oh, no," Kimmy said matter-of-factly, "they changed first try, but Masters Albus and Aberforth are being very powerful wizards."

Hermione's mouth ticked upward at the corners. Apparently, she'd expected no less of their headmaster, as well. "Well, Harry _is_ a rather powerful wizard in his own right."

"And Hermione's ruddy brilliant," Harry added. Hermione blushed faintly at the compliment.

Kimmy looked back and forth between the two. Then she nodded. "There is being very strong magic in Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter. It's being a good match."

Somehow, that manner of observation coming from their friendly little house elf made Harry feel a bit goofy with the warm fuzzy feelings that bloomed in his chest. He glanced at Hermione and her eyes were lowered and a tiny smile was fixed on her down-turned face. She was really very beautiful, Harry noted.

"Have Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter told Master Albus about the cats?"

Hermione shook her head at once and looked back up. "We haven't told anyone except our good friend, Ron."

"We haven't exactly reported ourselves to the Animagus Registry," Harry provided as he leaned in slightly toward the elf.

Kimmy mulled that over. "It's being big trouble to be rogue animagi," she mused aloud.

"We know it is, but if we really hope for it to be of any advantage to Harry against You Know Who, it must remain a closely guarded secret, even from Headmaster Dumbledore."

"Kimmy can see how that is true.

"Miss Hermione told Kimmy that she and Mister Harry Potter are being cats often to practice. How are yous doing this and keeping it a secret?"

Hermione looked to Harry and winced. He, too, had a fair idea how their little escapades would go over with Kimmy.

"Oh, well… we've been… kipping off into the Forbidden Forest in the mornings when everyone else in the castle is still asleep." Hermione's shoulders tensed as she braced for the fall-out.

As anticipated, Kimmy's face screwed unhappily. "That is being very bad, Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter! The Forbidden Forest is very dangerous! It is forbidden for good reason. That's very bad cat thinking of you."

Curiosity overwhelmed guilt for Hermione just then and she sat up straighter. "What do you mean by that, Kimmy? You said something about the cat's thinking affecting us in the woods the other night. What does that mean?"

Kimmy leveled a patient look at Hermione, as though astounded that it wouldn't be perfectly obvious to the ever-observant Hermione Granger. "When yous be changing into animal, the animal thinking stays with the animagus even in people form. When your inner animal is being woke up it won't be dead until you change again. It is being in you, always it is there, and it can make you different. It makes a wizard or witch different."

Hermione frowned in thought. "You mean we've been thinking and behaving differently because of our animagus forms?"

"Would Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter have been sneaking off into the Forbidden Forest before you changed?" Kimmy countered.

Harry blinked. Could that be true? He knew _physically_ there was a difference in him, he could feel his jaguar every moment in the sense of knowing it was lying in wait for him to rouse it, but he'd never stopped to wonder if he'd been acting differently as _Harry_ for its awakened presence. But Kimmy was right. Routine morning excursions into the Forbidden Forest was not something that had ever occurred to him before he and Hermione had changed. And it _certainly_ would not have been something to which the Hermione from before the change would have consented. In fact, sneaking off into the Forbidden Forest for their practice had been _her_ idea. If he'd stopped to think about it, he would have seen how very un-Hermione-like that was. But it hadn't occurred to him to find it at all peculiar. And then there was the incident at Hogsmeade that got them in hot water with Dumbledore…

Shocking though it sounded, maybe Kimmy was right.

Harry looked to Hermione to find her with a stunned, furiously thinking look on her face. She glanced at him and he could see that she had gone over all the evidence that he had in her own mind. And it seemed to point to the same conclusion.

"I never knew that becoming an animal would make us different _people_," Hermione remarked, and she sounded almost vaguely troubled by the notion.

Kimmy shook her head. "Not different. In truth, closer to your true selves than ever before. These animals were being in you always, a part of you never come out before. When the animal is bound to you it is making you more the real you than you were before. But the real you is being different from the you free of the animal before the change." Kimmy pursed her lips in thought. "But the animal is needing to be free to make you different. Master Albus was never changing after the first time and the goat went mostly away. Mostly. Master Aberforth was being the eagle all the time, and even when he's being a wizard he is… flighty."

Hermione smirked. "His constant 'vacations', you mean?"

"Yes, and in thinking. He is being sharp but… bird-brained."

Harry couldn't help but laugh. Kimmy cast him a sidelong look, but her expression tempered when she recognized that Harry wasn't laughing _at_ Aberforth so much as the chosen description.

"I wonder how we're different now," Hermione asked herself aloud.

"It will be very hard to say, Miss Hermione. Where to say where you are different from you?"

Hermione gave a strange smile then. "Best to not obsess over that?"

Harry hadn't noticed a veiled recommendation in Kimmy's words, but he wasn't about to discount the fact that there may have been; Hermione was quicker to catch on to those kinds of things than he was.

Kimmy smiled sagaciously. "Kimmy would think so. But it would be smart to think more careful on your actions, because the cats could think a bad idea a good one. The cats won't have the same sense that Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter do. Or _should have_."

Hermione chuckled. "We got the message; no more jaunts in the Forbidden Forest."

"There's the witch thinking," Kimmy said happily and picked back up her cookie to continue munching on it.

Harry smirked, albeit a tad forlornly. He folded his arms casually over his chest and crossed one leg over the other as he put the brunt of his weight against the counter. He looked toward Hermione and saw her resigned to, but at the same time accepting of, Kimmy's recommendation. So it seemed their Forbidden Forest run routine was at its end. He'd miss his mornings in the forest with Hermione, but there was undeniable sense in Kimmy's objections to their forays. He still felt like he and Hermione could take care of themselves out there and handle any threats that might crop up, especially as the jaguar and lioness. But then, that seemed to be the point of Kimmy's lecture about cat thinking to begin with (and perhaps in as such it proved itself accurate). They'd have to think of some other way to meet together as the cats; Harry was willing to make adjustments to their existing routine, but giving up the experience altogether was not an option as far as he was concerned. Those times with Hermione meant too much to him. Maybe Hermione would already have some ideas of what they could do in place of Forbidden Forest treks.

"Oh!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed and sat upright in her chair. Harry lifted his eyebrows in wait to hear what thought had set her off; he knew the look of Hermione when an idea suddenly came upon her. It might even be an idea about their new cat dilemma. Kimmy paused, cookie halfway to her mouth, and looked expectantly toward Hermione at her outburst.

Hermione moved her eyes from Kimmy to Harry. "While everyone's gone we should probably give Kimmy her presents."

"Kimmy has presents?" the house elf asked, happily surprised.

"Of course you do, and I think you should go ahead and open them early while it's just us in the house. Might be a bit difficult to explain to Gram tomorrow morning why Harry and I would both get a dog gifts," Hermione said as she stood to head toward the adjoining living room.

"Well, she thinks I spoil Kimmy rotten as my pet as it is, so maybe not so hard to explain," Harry quipped but he pushed off the counter to accompany Hermione into the living room and the stacks of Christmas presents found therein.

Kimmy clapped excitedly, crammed the last bit of cookie in her mouth, and jumped down to the floor.

The house elf's presents had been pushed to the back of the amassed packages, very nearly behind the tree, and Hermione got down on the floor to dig them out. Crookshanks, curled up on the brick of the fireplace, watched the goings on with little more than vague interest. When Harry plopped down on the couch facing the tree, the long-haired cat rose, left the fireplace, and padded over to where the young wizard was lounging. Crookshanks leapt up on to the couch, climbed on Harry's lap, and lay down, fully expecting some attention. Harry absently began to pet the cat while he watched Hermione bring out the wrapped gifts for Kimmy, three in total. Kimmy bounced on the balls of her feet then sat down on the floor, legs splayed like a child's. "Oh, Kimmy is so very excited."

"Well, don't get _too_ excited, it's not much," Harry commented from his position on the couch before Kimmy got her hopes up too high.

Hermione nodded and continued Harry's train of thought. "No, it isn't much, but we did want to get you something for Christmas. We really do consider you a friend." Hermione turned to sit on the floor facing the house elf, her legs crossed and the stacked gifts on her lap.

Kimmy looked up at Hermione with bright, shining eyes. "Kimmy is thinking of the Grangers and Mister Harry Potter as friends, too."

Hermione smiled then turned her attention to the presents on her lap. She picked up the first one, topped with a blue bow. "This one's from Harry."

Kimmy turned a beaming smile on Harry, accepting the gift box, and began to hum a Christmas tune to herself as she started to tear off the paper. She bobbed her head from side to side and seemed to enjoy the process of unwrapping as much as the idea of the present itself. When she was down to the box Kimmy pried open the lid and looked inside.

"Like I said," Harry cautioned, "not much, but I thought you might think it was—"

A peal of uproarious laughter interrupted Harry's sentence, and he finished awkwardly, "funny."

Kimmy pulled out a pair of boxer shorts from the box and held them up to fully appreciate the scene playing out upon them. They sported enchanted figures that moved around the material; Harry had gotten them in a shop at Diagon Alley that could take 'special orders' as to what a person wanted on their article of clothing. On Kimmy's pair of boxers, a golden eagle soared majestically around the upper half of the shorts, while on the bottom half a grey-bearded goat chased along after the bird, bleating and wiggling its stubby little tail.

Kimmy wiggled and giggled on the floor. "Oh! That is being very funny!"

Hermione couldn't help her own laugh at the figures on the shorts. "It is funny, but perhaps you shouldn't tell the headmaster or his brother where you got them."

Harry had worried about that, too, when he came up with the idea. He banked on Dumbledore being agreeable enough to not take offense. As to Aberforth… Harry didn't know the wizard personally, so it was easier to put the other Dumbledore's reaction to the gift out of his mind. But he wouldn't be opposed to Kimmy's sworn secrecy as to where she obtained the boxer shorts.

Kimmy hugged the boxer shorts to her and made a strange trilling noise in the back of her throat, enough to make Harry think maybe house elves had some form of purring. "Oh, Masters Albus and Aberforth would not be mad about the shorts. Master Aberforth would think them _very_ funny, Kimmy thinks."

"Well, as Albus Dumbledore is our headmaster, he's the one we were rather more concerned about," Hermione said.

Kimmy touched her finger to the boxers, in the goat's path, and the animal stopped, studied the impediment to his pursuit of the eagle, then proceeded to butt at Kimmy's fingertip with its horns. Kimmy made the trilling sound again and took her finger away to watch the goat bound off on its way. "Master Albus would not be angry. Kimmy is liking this present very much for the love she has for Masters Albus and Aberforth both. But it can be all ours secret if Mister Harry Potter and Miss Hermione wishes."

"Better safe than sorry," Harry said with a grin in Hermione's direction, and when she shot a fleeting glance his way for turning her own words back on her he winked.

"Thank you very much for the boxers, Mister Harry Potter," Kimmy said as she admiringly smoothed her hands over the silky soft fabric. The eagle twisted to avoid her touch and the goat had to hurdle Kimmy's pinky finger.

"You're welcome, Kimmy. I'm glad you like them."

"Very, very much," she replied with a vigorous nod.

Hermione picked up the second present in her lap. "This one's from me. I'm afraid it won't be as good as Harry's."

Kimmy set aside the eagle and goat boxers, took the proffered box from Hermione, and opened it merrily. When the box laid bare its contents, Kimmy reached inside and came out with handfuls of dangling straps.

"They're suspenders," Hermione explained. "I noticed most of your shorts have a bit of cord tied on the waistband to keep them in place. You can just clip these on to the shorts and hook them around your shoulders. They're magic, so they'll change color to match whatever shorts you're wearing." Hermione smiled thinly. "I know they're not really fun so much as practical, but…"

"They are perfect, Miss Hermione," Kimmy said at once and shook her hands to send the straps swaying like fistfuls of snakes. "Fun must needs have practical to keep it fun, and practical must needs fun to keep it practical."

Hermione laughed. "Well, I never looked at it that way, but I guess it makes sense."

"And you know, you'll probably get a lot more use out of Hermione's gift than mine," Harry pointed out. "You can wear those a lot. More than you can wear just a pair of boxer shorts."

"True, true," Kimmy nodded. "It's well met that Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter cover everything. It's well matched indeed."

"Here's the last one. It's from my mum and dad."

Kimmy took the last box, ripped off the paper, and pried open the box. Inside she pulled out two sets of boxer shorts, one in each hand. A note fluttered to the floor and Hermione fetched it since Kimmy had her hands full. She read aloud, "Kimmy, the pink ones are Jake's doing. He has a strange sense of humor, but he means well. Undergarments seem a small way to thank you for all you've done for our Hermione and Harry, but you've been a delightful presence in our home and we've enjoyed your company. Happy Christmas."

Kimmy sniffled. "Aww, Kimmy's going to get teary." She turned to the shorts she held in hand. The pair in her right hand were bumblegum pink and when Kimmy rotated them she gave a bark/chirrup of laughter. Written on the backside of the shorts, in baby blue, was the word 'ATTITUDE'. In Kimmy's left hand were a pair of marble-patterned green boxers, the lighter green shades matching Kimmy's eyes almost perfectly.

Kimmy set down the last of her gifts in her pile of goodies and seemed to contemplate something very seriously.

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked when she noted the intensity that had come over the little elf.

Kimmy looked up. "No. Kimmy has somethings for Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter." With that she jumped up to her feet and dashed out of the room. Harry and Hermione exchanged baffled glances.

In a moment Kimmy came back into the living room with something held in each hand. She moved to Hermione first and gave her the item in her right hand, then approached Harry and held out her left hand to him. Harry took the object and brought it closer for inspection. It looked like an oversized marble or perhaps a miniature crystal ball from one of Trelawney's classes. It was milky colored inside and as far as Harry could see there was nothing beyond the white haze.

Harry looked toward Hermione to see she'd received an identical milky ball. She brought up her eyes to give Harry a perplexed look. That cinched it; Harry had no chance of knowing what Kimmy had given them if Hermione was puzzled. "They're lovely, Kimmy… what are they?"

The second Hermione said Kimmy's name, Harry saw a flash of tan and green in the white of the orb in his hand. His eyes flicked down swiftly just in time to see what looked like Kimmy's visage appear then vanish in the span of a few seconds.

"They are summoning spheres," Kimmy explained. "Masters Albus and Aberforth are always being able to summon Kimmy whenever they want her because she was once a Dumbledore house elf. Members of the house elf's family are always being able to call upon them, but being free Kimmy answers because she chooses to. With these, Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter need only hold them and say Kimmy's name and she will hear, and whenever you need her she will come."

Harry was duly moved by the gesture, but Hermione's mouth dropped open. Apparently, there was a bit more to this than he thought.

"Kimmy…" Hermione breathed, "that's… we can't accept these. House elves dispose themselves like that only to their _families_. We don't deserve these."

"Kimmy gave them to yous. She likes Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter very much. She is willing to be at their disposal, too. Masters Albus and Aberforth won't mind sharing."

Hermione stared in amazement at the boxer-wearing house elf. Finally, she said in a very serious tone, "Thank you, Kimmy. We're honored."

"Happy Christmases to both Miss Hermione and Mister Harry Potter."

Crookshanks, from his perch in Harry's lap, batted at the summoning sphere in Harry's hand as the milky white innards churned. He glanced up from Hermione's familiar to the wall clock and noted the time. "Oh, I should probably go feed Tiggy."

Hermione looked up from her summoning sphere as Harry was moving Crookshanks out of his lap. "Want some company?"

As he stood he shook his head. "No, don't trouble to get out of your pajamas; I know where everything is. I won't be long." Besides, he liked the sight of Hermione lounging around the house in her pajamas. There was something at once criminally sensual and inordinately peaceful about it. Harry wasn't sure why or how that was the case, but he knew he liked it, and that was enough.

With the gift from Kimmy in hand, he went down the house hallway and into the bedroom Hermione was using for their stay. They'd stowed his luggage, pithy though it was, in her room for the simple fact that with the Christmas bonanza in the living room there wasn't really room for his things to be in the same room that he slept in. It hadn't proved to be a problem; he and Hermione took turns in the bedroom to change or Harry took his clothes to the bathroom.

He fetched a pair of jeans, a jumper, socks, trainers, and his jacket from his things while carefully putting away the sphere in his bag. He dressed and headed back out into the hall and toward the living room, where Hermione was clearing up the empty boxes and torn paper from Kimmy's presents.

Kimmy, changed back to dog form, was waiting for him at the front door, ready as ever to take up her charge as protector to the young wizard. When he opened the door she preceded him out into the cold afternoon.

A light snow had begun falling since Jake, Miranda, and Berti left. It drifted down to melt in Harry's hair and dust his clothes with flakes as he headed across the yard to the barn.

An enclosed paddock contained the barn and a portion of acreage for Tiggy to graze on. Hermione had said that when there had been more horses at Agincourt than just Tiggy her grandfather had turned them out on the pastures for grazing, but pared down to just a single horse the paddock surrounding the barn was well enough to serve. Berti wasn't one much for bringing Tiggy in every night as Hermione's grandfather used to; she preferred keeping the mare in the barn paddock all the time and simply going out to feed her twice a day.

When Harry opened the gate to enter the paddock the hinge squeaked and from inside the barn came a nicker. From the shadows of the open barn door, Tiggy stuck her head out to look toward him, ears perked. She had enough of a sense of time to know that someone coming out to see her at this time of day usually meant she would get fed, and she was attentive for that very reason.

Harry crossed the short distance to the structure and stepped into the open barn. The entrance of the building opened to a dirt floor corridor that separated four stalls, two on either side of the central walkway. The first stall on the right was kept open and the floor lined with straw. Tiggy was inside that stall, comfortably sheltered from the winter weather. When Harry came into the barn she stretched her neck and extended her nose toward him.

"Hi, Tiggy," Harry greeted and brought up his hand to touch the mare's velvet-soft nose. Tiggy blew hot breath on his palm and worried her upper lip over his fingers. She'd become much more affectionate toward him once he'd taken to being the one to feed her.

Tiggy's burnished coat that had shone like copper in the summer was fuzzy with added thickness for winter. It made her look more pony than horse, closer to cute than majestic. Harry reached up to gently pat the horse on the forehead then headed to the next stall on the right. That stall was filled wall to wall with bales of hay. At the start of winter, Berti would hire some 'strapping young man', as she called it, to haul out a hefty supply to last the winter and stow it all in the second stall. Of the two stalls on the other side of the barn, one had actually been converted into an office for Henry Richardson, but following his death it was converted again into a feed room. Bins for grain had been moved inside where once a desk had obviously been, for there were still the trappings around the cubicle of a horseman's retreat. There were pictures hung on the wall of a younger version of the family Harry had come to know. Miranda as a young woman, Berti no older than Miranda was now, a man with Hermione's smile, and one picture Harry particularly liked of a three-year-old Hermione sitting atop Tiggy and beaming at the camera. It was mind-boggling to think that at the same moment she was astride her grandfather's trusted mount and smiling like sunshine, Harry was tucked away in a cupboard under his aunt and uncle's stairwell. There was a dusty filing cabinet in one corner of the office that Harry had never cracked open, and an engraving above the door with the beveled words '_thou fliest without wings_' and the likeness of a horse's head on either side of the proverb. It was all so simple but at the same time personal, and though it may have been unreasonable to do so, Harry got the feeling he could glean a good sense of the kind of man Henry Richardson had been from the things that he'd left behind. The last stall in the barn, the one adjoining the office, had stood unused for a long time, possibly since Hermione's grandfather died. Cobwebs framed the doorway and a musty smell of abandonment assaulted the nose if one stuck their head inside the dark enclosure.

Harry pulled open the sliding door to the hay stall and here a sweet smell greeted him, new to him who had grown up in the suburbs but somehow innately pleasant to his senses. Tiggy walked up after him and watched with keen interest as Harry fetched a pair of wire-cutters from a hook on the inside wall of the stall and walked over fallen clumps of loose hay to work on the closest bale. He worked his fingers underneath the binding wire, wedged the wire-cutters in place, and snipped. When he cut the second wire the bale seemed to almost spring free as the sections fanned out from their tightly packed shape. Harry tucked the wire-cutters into his back pocket.

Tiggy nickered hungrily behind him.

"I'm working on it, Tiggy, hold your… self," Harry said, as though the horse would understand a word he spoke. The mare snorted and for half a heartbeat Harry wondered. He grabbed up two sections of hay from the bale and pushed past a suddenly obstructive Tiggy to make his way to her stall. Harry went inside, Tiggy close behind him, and dumped the hay in the rack. Tiggy set immediately to eating, her human visitor forgotten. Harry wiped his hands together to brush off stray bits of hay and gave the horse a pat on the neck.

"You've seen quite a lot of this family, haven't you, girl?" Harry found himself talking to the horse the way he'd seen Hermione talk to her. The way he usually talked to Hedwig, but Hedwig was a wizard familiar and more likely than not to actually understand him. He hadn't really understood why Hermione would talk to an animal that clearly didn't understand what she was saying. But now he thought maybe he got it. It was peaceful to have such an unfailing confidant, such an unerringly safe place to leave his thoughts. How many of Hermione's girlhood fears and secrets had the horse been told? How many of her tears had been pressed into the smooth copper coat, how many smiles buried in the coarse hair of her mane? In his own life that had been full of so many impermanent figures, loved ones made of only photographs and others' memories, it seemed queer to think that this horse had known three generations of this family that he'd come to cherish.

It was worlds away from the life he knew, magic or muggle, but he thought he might like to have a life like this one. In a different life, he could have been close to happy with this. A barn to keep the memories and a horse to keep the secrets seemed simplistically perfect in its own way.

And he knew without the need to ask that Hermione found some appeal in the lifestyle of her grandparents; it read in the smiles on the face of the little girl in the pictures on Henry's office walls.

Harry went through the remainder of the chores in content quiet, the winter kept at bay by the barn's roof and walls. When he fetched a portion of grain and took it to Tiggy's feed bucket she left the hay in favor of oats and sweet feed. He topped off the mare's water trough and mucked out the stall, though given leave to come and go as she pleased Tiggy didn't make much of a mess in her 'bedroom'. By then Harry was hot under his layers of clothes and cast off his jacket, setting it aside on top of a bale of hay while he laid out fresh straw on the stall floor. Kimmy dropped in, reappearing after her patrol to look for any signs of trouble, and sat outside and out of the way in the corridor while Harry went about the chores.

When he was finished he retrieved his jacket, shook off the hay, and said to Kimmy, "That should do it. Let's head back in."

Kimmy's tail wagged once and she jumped up to lead the way back to the house.

Once inside, Harry hung his jacket on one of the coat hooks in the informal foyer and shook his hands through his hair to banish some of the water that had soaked in from the melting snow. Kimmy darted off but Harry tended not to concern himself with Kimmy's whereabouts.

From the front door he could see Hermione clearly in the living room, standing in front of the tree and fussing with it. When he first came in she cast him a look and a smile over her shoulder, then turned back to her task. What she could be doing he didn't know, they'd decorated the tree to perfection yesterday, but it didn't really matter. Hermione found a flaw and was dead-set on correcting it. Not that he expected less from her.

He walked toward her, intent on asking what imperfection on the tree she'd seen that demanded righting. As he drew near her, he could hear that she was humming to herself. At first he naturally assumed it was a Christmas carol and it only brightened his holiday.

When he got closer he stopped dead in his tracks and his heart seemed to slam into his ribcage. It felt like vertigo, like stepping into the very scene of a dream, as he recognized the chorus of 'Give Our Magic Time'. He stared openly at Hermione before him in Berti's living room, mentally lost in the vision he'd had in Divination that had precipitated the greatest days of Harry's life.

Hermione turned to glance at him, a dreamy, content look on her face, but it vanished when she saw his face. He must have looked rather peaky as he gaped at her. "Harry? What's wrong?"

"That song you were humming…"

"One of my favorites," Hermione admitted with a small smile. "Don't tell Ron, though; he'd never let me live it down. It's a really mushy song."

He was too tangled in the images within his mind's eye to even think of snitching to Ron about Hermione's choice of song. "I won't tell him." He managed to get some grip on himself once more. "What are you doing?"

"Oh," she glanced over her shoulder at the tree, "tinsel rearranging. I noticed some uneven distribution on one side. But never mind that," she turned her back on the tree purposefully, no doubt a grand gesture in Hermione's inner world to so completely dismiss an imperfect Christmas tree to attend to Harry. "There's a Christmas special coming on the telly. Would you care to watch it?"

"Sure."

Together they curled up on the couch to watch the television. Hermione snuggled up very nearly in Harry's lap, and as far as Harry was concerned they could have been watching a nature special on the lifecycle of honey bees and been just as happy. It was really a bonus that the program was festive and entertaining. At one point in the movie, Kimmy joined them carrying a plate of cookies that they all shared. Harry had the best Christmas Eve day of his life watching a Christmas movie on the couch of Hermione's grandmother, sanwhiched between Hermione on his left and Kimmy on his right, with cookies in plentiful supply.

When the movie was over Hermione pulled free from Harry's arms, to his chagrin. "I should take a bath before I start to smell," she commented with a self-deprecating laugh.

"You smell nice," Harry countered guilelessly, being entirely honest. Her smell had been part of what had been so perfect about curling up on the couch watching a movie with her. Part of what made it perfect because it was part of her.

Hermione grinned and swept in to kiss him on the lips. "You're sweet, but I want to be fresh and clean for Christmas morning." With that she got off the couch and disappeared down the hallway. Harry lingered on the notion that she'd be wet and naked for a sinful second, then began to flip the channels on the television looking for something to watch.

He'd just stopped on a rugby match when the telephone rang. Harry looked around a moment, debated answering for all of a second, then reached over to pick up the cordless handset off the end table and bring it to his ear. "Hello?"

There was a pause on the other end, then a man's voice issued forth, "Hello? I'm sorry, I think I may have gotten the wrong number. I was trying to reach Roberta Richardson."

"You have the right place; she's over at the McCormicks at the moment."

"I see." Another pause. "Who is this?"

"My name's Harry Potter."

"Harry who?"

Harry almost laughed for the humor in running across someone who didn't know right off who Harry Potter was. It was refreshing. "Potter. May I ask who this is?"

"This is Ben. Ben Richardson. I'm Roberta's son."

"Oh, right, the one in the states."

That seemed to set the man on the other end to really puzzling over the stranger answering his mother's phone. "Since you're a tad too personable to be a burglar hitting my mum's while she's away, what exactly _are_ you doing in my mother's house, Harry Potter?"

"I'm staying over for the Christmas holiday; I came with the Grangers."

"Are you there alone?"

"No, Hermione's here. She's in the bath."

"Ah… and who are you exactly? Some friend of Hermione's I expect?"

"Sort of. I'm her boyfriend." It felt good to just say it like that. Some strange facsimile of pride swelled inside him.

"_Boyfriend_?!" the man yipped, unexpectedly enough for Harry to flinch. "But she's, like, _twelve_!"

"Uhh… closer to sixteen, actually," Harry answered, a bit perplexed himself now.

"Damn… has it been that many years? Guess it has. Well, I'll be. Her boyfriend, huh? That's going to take a bit of acclimating to."

Just then, the front door opened as Jake, Miranda, and Berti returned from their lunch with the McCormicks. "One second," Harry said into the phone, then raised his voice to say, "Gram, Ben's on the phone." He held out the phone to her.

"Thank you, dear," Berti said and took the phone. "Ben. How are you, sweetie?... You're telling me, you ought to see the girl, before you know it she'll be twenty. What has you ringing me? You've already called to say happy holidays; I hope nothing's wrong… Really? Oh, Ben, that's wonderful news! Congratulations! How's Rachel doing?... Well, I couldn't be happier for you… Of course… I'll tell everyone the good news. Have a happy Christmas, Ben, and give Rachel my best wishes… I love you. Goodbye." Berti hung up the phone and turned to Jake, Miranda, and Harry, all watching her curiously.

"That was Ben; he just called to say that he and Rachel are expecting another baby."

"Another baby? That's wonderful!" Miranda said with a bright smile for her brother's good fortune.

"Fourth on the way?" Jake mused, "Those two are certainly aiming for the full house."

"I think it's positively delightful," Berti remarked confidently. "What cheery news to receive on Christmas Eve! Where's Hermione? She'll want to hear about her new cousin in the oven."

"In the bath," Harry said with a nod toward the hallway.

"Well, I'll just have to shout in at her then. Hope her head's not underwater." Berti left while Miranda and Jake began to talk about Ben's big news.

Harry sat back and basked in the domestic bliss of learning of the addition of a new member to a happy family. This, he knew, was how a baby should be perceived, a joy, not the bane his arrival had been to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. He envied this child not yet born having a place awaiting him or her in such a wonderful family. But strangely, he didn't feel as potent an envy as he would have a year ago.


	49. Chapter 49

Hermione lay in bed that night, staring upward in the dark direction of the ceiling, and try as she might she could not sleep. She might not be a little kid anymore, but she was still finding it unbelievably difficult to sleep on the night of Christmas Eve. In a way it felt like this Christmas, more than any other, was titillating. It wasn't that she was overly eager to learn what presents she'd received. That wasn't it.

Maybe it was the fact that, since third year when she discovered she had a crush on Harry, she'd had this fantasy about what would constitute a perfect Christmas. A fantasy she knew full well was just the notion of a silly girl; they would never come true, but it was fun to imagine. This was dangerously close to those Christmases in her daydreams. Close enough, anyway. Uncle Ben wasn't going to be present, and her grandfather would never celebrate any more Christmases with them, but Harry was with her, with her family. He was her boyfriend sharing Christmas with her and her family. It was closer to her dreams than anything had right to be in their world as of late.

Hermione rolled over and glanced at her clock. The digital read-out glowed '1:13'. Hermione huffed and turned on her back again, giving the staring into darkness method another try. It was no good. She wasn't the slightest bit sleepy.

She decided a cup of hot cider might be in order, or at least would be worth a try. With that decided she threw off her covers and got out of bed. She crossed the room and carefully opened her bedroom door, peeking out into the hallway. Her parents' and grandmother's bedroom doors were shut, and nary a sound issued forth to suggest her excursion was apt to wake them. At the other end of the hallway Hermione saw the flickering warm glow that would be from the Christmas tree lights twinkling festively. She frowned at that. She was sure they'd turned the lights off when everyone went to bed; Miranda was concerned the lights would keep Harry awake.

Silent as a cat on the hunt, Hermione tip-toed down the hall toward the light. When she came around the hallway wall to a point where she could see into the living room, she drew up short. She had a good view of the couch where Harry was sleeping. Or should have been sleeping, but he wasn't. He was sitting up on the couch, blanket draped over his shoulders, arms hooked around his crooked legs, as he stared at the tree. The lights reflected off the surface of his glasses in a dazzling miniature of the festooned tree even as it lit his face with a gentle, shimmering hue.

Harry looked miles away, as one gazing into a fire loses focus so easily, then he seemed to sense he was no longer alone. He turned his head slightly in her direction and smiled faintly. "Hi."

Hermione stepped out into the living room, no longer in prowling mode. "Hi. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Shouldn't you?" he countered in gentle teasing.

"I couldn't sleep; thought I'd try having a cup of hot cider. What are you doing?"

Harry turned his eyes back to the tree. "Just looking."

That struck Hermione as slightly peculiar, though in their world of trolls, ghosts, and dragons not overly so. Harry glanced back toward her, seemed to consider her a moment, then wordlessly held out one arm, opening a space within the blanket that he wore about his shoulders like a cloak.

They were fluent enough in their own unspoken language that Hermione didn't have to inquire after his meaning. Hot cider forgotten, she padded over to the couch, snuggled into the space within his arm, and quickly found her place at his side. It took them so little time to fit together these days, like there was a natural place for the other, puzzle pieces that connected together just right. Harry brought his arm around her, wrapped them both in his blanket, and Hermione nestled down and rested her head on his shoulder. Perfect contentment, her harbor from all that the world might put in her path. She found herself staring at the tree in the night-shrouded house. Definitely the natural setting to see the wonder of the Christmas tree.

"Pretty, isn't it?" she commented softly.

"Yeah." Harry tugged her closer and tilted his head to rest his cheek against the top of her head. "When I was little, I used to sneak out of my cupboard at Christmas while the Dursleys were asleep and just stare at the tree."

The calm peace of the night fled when his words registered. Hermione's brain screeched to a stuttering halt, her lungs hitched, her skin prickled with cold dread. Hermione tensed and sat up to look at Harry. He was watching her, confused by her sudden change in demeanor. "Your _what_?"

Harry's expression tensed at once. He'd not meant to say what he did, she could tell by looking at him.

But neither was he fit to ignore her question. He sighed, resigned, as he said, "I didn't have a bedroom at Privet Drive until I was twelve. Before that they kept me in a cupboard under the stairs."

Her heart broke. Her heart raged. She knew her mouth was agape and her eyes unblinking as she tried to wrap her head around Harry's confession. How anyone could be so cruel to the one she loved so dearly… it was unspeakable, _unthinkable_. Harry was an amazing, caring, loyal person, and he'd been treated like a vile criminal, a monster. If the Dursleys were magical, she'd ask that they be sent to Azkaban for the injustices they'd so callously heaped on Harry. With Harry's fame in the wizarding world, it just might happen. If the wizarding world knew how their icon of triumph over evil had been treated... whether he liked it or not, Harry was important to a lot of people he'd never even met. Their world wouldn't stand for it, but in the muggle world no one did a thing to help a kind-hearted, neglected little boy locked away in a cupboard like an unwanted stray dog.

"Harry… I… I never knew," she whispered. How bad had it been? She thought she'd known most of the sordid details about Harry's upbringing. She'd not known this. What else didn't she know? How much worse was it than she suspected?

Harry's lips pursed. "I never told you. I never told anyone. It doesn't matter, Hermione."

"It _matters_," she replied.

"Why?" he asked her in a wearied voice. She could hear how much he _wanted_ it to not matter. She wished it was that easy, for his sake. She'd give anything to just brush it all away like a fine layer of dust on a countertop. Would that a person could be put to rights so easily.

"Because it's wrong."

"I know it is. Now. But that doesn't change what happened." Harry averted his eyes and his voice turned… morose, almost on the edge of pained. "You knew I was damaged goods before you ever met me." He said it like a plea, a means to ask 'how can you still be surprised by anything bad about me?', and in the silence that followed, a clear fear 'will you abandon me, too, when you know more?'

Hermione reached out and ran her hand over the back of his neck. Harry took in a breath, despite himself, even as he continued to look anywhere but at her. "I'm so sorry you had to grow up with that wretched family. You deserve better. It's not fair that you had to grow up there just because your parents were brave enough to defy Voldemort, to fight him. There are so many witches and wizards our age who never lost their families because _their_ parents let someone else fight for them, and it's not fair to you. But _never_ think the way I feel about you would change no matter what you might have hidden in your past. _That_ doesn't matter, not to me."

Harry finally looked her in the eye again… and smiled thinly. "Thank you."

Hermione returned to her place tucked into his side, sliding her arm around his stomach to hold him in a partial hug. Harry looped his arm over her back again. "Maybe one day you'll know everything…" he said faintly.

If her heart could take it, she thought, but instead of saying that she gave his middle a squeeze, because in his voice it was obvious he was scared by the idea. "Whether I do or not it won't change us, I promise you that. Your present and future are more than enough for me."

Hermione shifted to get comfortable snuggled up against him when she noticed he'd gone still… notably still. She frowned, puzzled and a little worried, and she lifted her head just enough to peer up at his face. He looked… stymied, maybe on the road to consternated. "Harry… what is it?"

He shook his head in distraction. "What you said… can I ask you something, Mione?"

"Of course."

"It's about… divination."

Hermione couldn't help her face scrunching up. First off, she had not expected such a seemingly drastic jump in topic, and second… well, it was _divination_, and she had no love lost for the subject. Something Harry knew perfectly well, which only made his question put to her on the topic all the stranger. "Oh. All right," she said tentatively, "What's your question? But mind you I'm not really much of an expert on it."

Harry looked fairly distracted by his thoughts as he mulled over how to go about asking her what was on his mind. "Have you ever heard of the Draught of the Foreknowing?"

If this was going to be about research, she might be able to do a fair job answering his question after all. "Yes. It's an herbal potion with elements of centaur magic. Supposedly drinking the Draught of the Foreknowing allows a witch or wizard to glimpse the future. It's generally relegated to vagabond witchcraft, witches and wizards who fashion themselves after the gypsies. Carnival stuff, though the draught's considered to be ineffective on muggles and even squibs so it's really employed more for fleecing hapless muggles than true wizardry.

"Most authorities doubt that it even works. The theory is that it's more hallucination than divination. Even among those who profess its authenticity, it's admittedly limited in what it can do. It's said drinking the Draught of the Foreknowing only permits a look into the future of the individual who drinks it." Hermione paused to ponder his question further. "Why do you ask?"

"I drank some of it."

Hermione's eyes widened. "When?"

"In Trelawney's class last term."

Hermione was fuming in a split second. "That woman gave you a hallucinogen? I can't believe it! Did Dumbledore know she was passing out mind-altering substances?"

"I think he did, but she said she had to get special permission to use it on us."

"Of all the irresponsible, hair-brained…" Hermione seethed. If there was any question about the ethical standing or application of a potion, it should not be handed out to students. And for the sake of Divination, which was a ridiculous class to begin with… it rankled her sensibilities well and wholly. At least the touchier potions Snape had them brew were proven, ministry-accepted potions, and taught by an undeniable expert in the field (git though Snape might be as a person). Trelawney wasn't fit to hand out leaflets on the street corner, much less Draught of the Foreknowing.

Harry interrupted her thoughts by asking, "So you don't think there's any way to possibly tell the future?"

Oh, what an ambiguous question. Might as well ask her about the existence of a supreme being while he was tossing around the big ones. Hermione pinched her lips and frowned in thought. "Well, it would be incredibly close-minded of me to say with certainty that there's no possible way to tell the future. I honestly don't know. The whole field of divination is just so… unsubstantiated. It can't be tested or proven one way or the other, really. Personally, I wouldn't put much faith in anything that came from that field of witchcraft and wizardry."

Harry looked oddly… downtrodden at that, though Hermione didn't have much time to think on why that might be. "Oh… But what about the things people see when they say they're seeing the future?"

"Well… some opponents of divination believe that it's just the seer's mind coming up with the things they see in their 'visions'. A lot of the methods in divination aim at altering the way the brain perceives the world, and many believe that in such a state the seer may actually be projecting their own desires for the future… or their fears. Those are what are interpreted as visions of the future, or the present in the case of clairvoyance, when really it's just the seer's heightened imagination.

"As to those predictions that appear to come true… well, the conservative school of thought on that is that if a part of you expects something to happen it might influence your actions toward that very end, so it _does_ happen, but only because you made it happen."

"I guess that makes sense," Harry mused, but he looked… almost out of sorts. Hermione frowned closely at him. "What is it, Harry?" Then it struck her. "Did _you_ see something when you drank the Draught of the Foreknowing?"

Harry nodded silently.

Hermione was thoroughly curious now (and also rather surprised at the admission; truthfully she wouldn't expect drinking Trelawney's potion to result in anything more fantastical than a splitting headache). "What did you see?"

"You."

That wasn't quite as earth-shattering as she'd secretly hoped to hear. "Oh, well, that's a perfect case in point for what I was saying. I mean, how hard would it be to figure out that you and I would be together in the future, be it as friends or otherwise? We've been a part of each other's lives since first year, and I don't think it's making any great predictions to say we'll be a part of each other's lives in the future."

Harry didn't respond to that. He sat perfectly still, like a marble statue for how unmoving he'd become, and Hermione started to worry. She peered closer at him in the subdued lighting and could swear he'd paled. In fact, he looked a bit like he was about to be sick.

"Harry?" she reached out and touched his forearm, hoping to bring him back from his ruminations and get him to react to her.

Harry licked his lips nervously, took a steeling breath, and said in a measured, tense voice, "I saw… something else, too."

"What was it?" Hermione unconsciously leaned in closer to him, as though he were going to whisper a secret in her ear.

Harry's eyes flicked briefly to her face then he looked quickly away. "I saw a… baby."

"Oh," Hermione replied absently, then a second later it sank in. Then it floored her. Her eyes went wide. "_Oh_!" Before she could school herself not to withdraw, she took her hand from Harry's arm.

Harry worried a loose thread on the blanket with his fingers just to have someplace to focus his nervous energy… and to keep his eyes off of her. His voice was barely above a whisper when he ventured, "Do you think I was just… seeing what I wanted to see?"

"I… _is_ that what you want?" Part of her didn't want him to answer. She almost couldn't take it all in. Her heart was racing at the same breakneck speed as her thoughts. How in the world had idle conversation about pretty Christmas trees turned into _this_?

As Hermione sat there and ran furiously through her thought processes, she looked at Harry as though seeing him for the first time, and in a way, she was. She was seeing him in a way that she never had before. She was looking at him as a father.

Harry abruptly let the thread on the blanket alone and raked his fingers through his dark hair, agitated and jittery. Hermione could feel the tension radiating off of him, the same way he braced when he saw a Dementor (she knew because she'd been by his side when the Azkaban guards showed up on more than one occasion). He risked a sidelong look at her as he winced and said, "Please don't freak out, Hermione, but… yeah, maybe."

Hermione sat back in shock. She was in overdrive. She had to break it down. _Yeah, maybe_ Harry wanted to have children. If she stuck to her personal views on divination, that it came from the wizard's subconscious rather than any real ability to predict the future, then some part of Harry wanted _them_ to have children. Then the deluge. Thoughts and fears and hopes and uncertainties flew at her from all directions and all at once. Without realizing it, she backed away from Harry under the onslaught. Motherhood. She'd never thought about it. Before Harry kissed her in the common room, she'd never let herself dare to believe that she might one day have the romantic kind of love, to say nothing about children. One needed to work up to the idea of starting a family; she felt like she'd been shoved into the exam room starkers without a clue what the test covered. Even if she _had_ thought about having kids some day, it would have been in the extreme abstract. Harry wasn't talking abstractly.

So it was down to a question of how she felt to what he felt.

Did she _want_ to have children? She couldn't honestly say, not yet. She needed time to think on it. She needed time to think _a lot_ on it.

Did she want to have _Harry's_ children? There was no way she could deal with that, just no way, it was too recently sprung on her.

But she knew she wouldn't want to have anyone else's children.

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth as she choked on a gasp. _Merlin_! Where had _that_ come from? And why, _why_ did it ring so true the moment the thought came to her? What did _her_ subconscious know that the rest of her didn't?

Harry was watching her in mounting panic. "_Please_ don't freak out. I'm sorry I brought it up."

That snapped Hermione out of her whirlwind thoughts. Harry looked fit to have a seizure with anxiety as he saw her pull away. She forced herself to act calm and stop retreating from him. "No, no… it's… you just… surprised me."

Harry looked ready to bolt. "I didn't mean to. Can we forget I said that?"

Hermione reflexively took his hand in her own. That, at least, still felt natural and right (even if his palm was clammy), no matter how colossally awkward everything else had become in a half-second. "I… I don't want to pretend you didn't say it. If that's how you feel… Harry… I'm not upset, I just… I wasn't expecting you to… I'm still processing here." Understatement of the millennium, but Harry seemed to relax marginally when she spoke calmly to him and touched him. He wouldn't figure she'd take his hand if she was flipping out, so he waited and watched cautiously.

Hermione took what time he gave her. He gave her what seemed a good ten minutes just sitting there on the couch with neither of them saying a word. Hermione continued to hold his hand, because in the back of her mind she worried he'd up and run if she wasn't holding on to him.

Finally, she felt she had some semblance of her wits about her. She took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, and turned her eyes up to Harry. He was studying her like she might erupt without warning, or maybe bite him if he didn't keep an eye on her. She managed a feeble smile and chewed on her bottom lip. "So… you drank the Draught of the Foreknowing and saw us having a baby." It helped to parse it down to facts. It was nearer to textbook that way.

Harry gave a careful nod, never once taking his eyes off her.

"When exactly did this happen?"

"The day I kissed you."

Hermione felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. It made her feel queasy, but in the background a nagging feeling bloomed and seemed to chant 'you should have seen this coming'. Somehow, she thought she should have been braced for something like this… fool of her to think she might come by a relationship honestly. "Oh, Harry… you didn't kiss me because that _vision_ convinced you it was the thing to do, did you?" 'Please don't tell me you did. Don't let this have been a lie.' She couldn't bear the idea that Harry, in some misplaced sense of honor, had 'done the proper thing' for a baby that didn't even exist. She couldn't stand to learn that that was the only reason he'd started dating her. It would be the kind of mucked up, well-intentioned thing Harry _would_ do.

Harry's eyes widened when the implications of Hermione's question registered. "No! That's not it." Harry squeezed her hand, the one she'd kept resolutely locked with his, to emphasize his sincerity on that point. "That vision or hallucination or whatever you want to call it shocked the _hell_ out of me. I didn't even understand it at first. I couldn't really… grasp it. I kind of obsessed about it all day, trying to figure out why you'd be there with a baby if it was supposed to be my future I'd seen. I wasn't connecting them.

"When we were alone in the common room that evening I was just… watching you, and it hit me that I could want that vision to be real someday. And I realized that you don't want those kinds of things with someone if you just see them as a friend."

Hermione smiled sweetly at him, her misgivings and fears beginning to fade.

"I… I didn't know I felt… _that_ way, until I sussed out that I could want… um, that maybe I'd like to have…"

"Children with me," Hermione finished for him.

Harry nodded and swallowed.

For a time, neither of them spoke. The dim living room seemed to oversee a thick silence like none Hermione had known before.

"Mione?" Harry asked with palpable trepidation.

She looked at him.

"I… I just want you to know I don't… I wouldn't… I don't expect anything. You know, the vision and all. If you never want to have kids, that's okay. We wouldn't change. I'm not with you for that. I just want to be with you."

It was just the right thing to say, whether he knew it or not. It put to rest any concerns she had about Harry's feelings for her. It couldn't be just because of that vision, because he said that didn't matter to their relationship, their future. She could tell him she never wanted children and Harry wouldn't leave her.

So it came back down to how _she_ felt.

Could she want to have children with Harry someday? Yes. It came so effortlessly when she knew Harry didn't hinge their entire relationship on that promise.

Hermione scooted over the distance she'd drawn back before when Harry first told her about the baby, closing the gap between them. Harry looked up carefully at her, hopeful but wary. Hermione offered a smile, looked down at their hands still entwined, and moved them both into his lap where she proceeded to play with his fingers. Harry looked down at their hands as well and after a moment sitting passively he very cautiously played with her fingers in reciprocation.

"Harry… we're too young," she said in a gentle, confident voice.

"I know. I didn't mean… I _really_ didn't mean _now_." He looked a bit flighty at the notion, in fact. That made Hermione feel better. At least they were on the same page in that respect.

"Because I want to finish school first. I want to go to university and I want to start a career, in what field I don't know yet, but I feel like there's so much I could do. There has to be something I can do to make the world a better place. I want to make a difference. I want to do things, things that would get put on hold when we start trying for a baby."

Harry was staring at her in something akin to the same wonder he'd earlier stared at the tree. The light glittering in his eyes came from within him this time rather than the reflections off the Christmas tree. "Not _if_?"

Hermione leaned closer and kissed him, soft and tender on his parted lips. When she pulled away it was only to drop her head to his shoulder. "Not if," she said softly.

Harry pulled his hand free of hers and his arm came around her to hold her tightly. He didn't say a word, but the way he gathered her to him said it all. She folded willingly against him. Hermione felt like the world had changed, somehow. Nothing looked different, but inside it seemed everything was changed. She and Harry were going to have kids someday. He was going to be the father of her children. She tried to imagine this new future, a sharp contrast to the life of work and colleagues that had so long seemed her fate. She tried to picture being pregnant with their son or daughter. She imagined giving birth and holding their newborn for the first time. Would it look like her or Harry? Would it be brainy like her, or adventurous like Harry? Could it be both? Would they have just one, an only child like she and Harry had been, or would they follow the Weasley example and have a pack of Potters? Would they make good parents? It was safe to wonder now, because it was decidedly years away from where they sat on Berti's couch. It was at a safe distance, more a far-off dream… and a good one.

It was as complete a Christmas as Hermione could ever wish to have, and the sun had not even dawned yet.

Harry's hand moved up her back and his fingers found their way into her hair. Hermione smiled against him. She loved it when he did that, be it her hair or her mane.

"You know," he said after a long, comfortable silence, "there was a time when I would have thought you'd end up with Ron."

"Me too," Hermione mumbled without moving her head from Harry's shoulder, which was just as well because Harry had not stopped tangling his fingers in her hair.

"Did you ever fancy him?"

Hermione considered her answer a moment. "I tried to."

Harry stopped playing with her hair and Hermione took it for a silent query.

"The truth is… I've had feelings for you since third year."

"You have?" He sounded genuinely startled. She didn't blame him; no doubt he didn't suspect that her feelings went back so far.

Hermione nodded. "I was convinced you would never see me as anything more than a friend. But Ron… he wasn't out of my league like you were, and I knew he liked me. It seemed like it should be simple. I tried to fancy him back, but I just never felt more than sisterly affection toward him."

"Wait… you thought I was _out of your league_?"

Hermione nodded again.

"Hermione, what in the world made you think that?"

Hermione finally lifted her head from his shoulder to sit back and look him in the eye. "Really, Harry, isn't it obvious? You're Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. You're a celebrity and some day you were going to end up with Cho Chang or a Fleur Delacour… someone popular and beautiful and I knew I had to accept that. Truly, as long as you were happy, that's what was most important. I was always going to be regular old ugly Hermione Granger, but as long as I was plain old Hermione, Harry Potter's friend, I was fine with it."

Harry's face went from stunned to displeased as he listened to her. He scowled in her direction as his mind went over all that she'd told him. "I hate it when you do that," he finally said.

Hermione blinked. "Do what?"

"Say you're not pretty."

"It's just the truth," she said with a dismissive shrug.

"It's mental," Harry retorted, then turned his body to more directly face her. Then he stopped and just… looked at her. Hermione forwent commenting on how he seemed to be channeling his inner Ron to puzzle at the way his eyes roamed intently over her face. He looked to almost study her, as though trying to decipher a riddle using the contours of her visage as the Rosetta stone. Harry blinked at last and brought his eyes to meet hers. Everything in his expression seemed to soften, as if he were on the cusp of a very lovely smile. "You're more than pretty, Hermione. I may not have known I fancied you until this year, but I've known you're pretty for a long time."

Hermione opened her mouth to speak and a really embarrassing squeak came out instead. She clamped her mouth shut and cleared her throat while Harry smirked.

"You don't have to say that just because you're my boyfriend," she finally managed to say. "Honestly, Harry, I'm not going to be upset because you think I'm plain to look at. I know I am."

Then Harry's hand was touching her face, lightly and delicately like she might be built from fine snow but still enough for her to feel the warmth of his palm on her cheek. Her heart did a skip for the look on Harry's face. He looked… enchanted. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you," he mused aloud, almost to himself, then he directed his words to her. "I didn't say you're pretty because I'm your boyfriend. If you'd asked me in third year I would have told you so… but now that I'm your boyfriend, I know it's okay to say that I don't think you're pretty."

Hermione tried to smile bravely through the ache, because she refused to let the truth wound her… not a truth that she'd come to terms with so long ago.

"I think you're beautiful," Harry finished lowly.

"You… but I… I'm _not_. I've heard it all my life, Harry. Plain, boring, ugly Hermione Granger. I have looked in a mirror a time or two, and I know why they all say those things. It's cruel for them to say it the way they do, but that doesn't make it any less true."

Harry frowned and slipped his hand from her cheek to the column of her neck, and at once Hermione shivered. When they were snogging, when he put his hand there, it was because he was about to move aside her hair to nuzzle at her throat. It was distracting to say the least.

"Hermione?"

"Y-yes?" His fingers were just barely grazing the skin of her neck, tickling and maddening at once.

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do."

Harry leaned in, moved her hair aside, and placed a gentle kiss on her neck. Then, without drawing away, he practically whispered in her ear, "Then just trust me and believe me when I say that you're beautiful _to me_."

To him. She could do that. Harry knew sides of her no one else, no one that called her ugly, knew. Maybe it _could_ make her beautiful in his eyes. And it didn't ask her to throw away a lifetime's worth of teasing and taunts about her hair and her teeth and her everything else, all of it completely unimpressive. It only asked that she make an exception for an exceptional person in her life. Put that way, she could believe him.

Hermione felt a tightness in her chest. It felt weird to be beautiful. It made a well of emotions bubble dangerously close to the surface, and she was a little frightened to think what might happen if they overcame her. She bit back an unintelligible sound in the back of her throat and snaked her arms around Harry's shoulders. She wrapped herself around him and Harry slipped his arms around her to return the embrace. She lowered her cheek to his shoulder and closed her eyes, surrendering to the moment of being with Harry, happy and beautiful in his arms.

"For what it's worth," Harry remarked in a light tone of voice, "I'm _really_ glad you didn't end up with Ron."

Hermione laughed. "I am, too. He'd have really buggered that up. I probably would have been just shy of a troll by the end of it."

Harry chuckled and they pulled apart just enough to settle more comfortably on the couch together. Hermione smiled to herself and leaned into Harry. "For what it's worth, I'm really glad you didn't end up with Cho."

Harry laughed. "Yeah, I am, too. I'd have become known as the Boy Who Couldn't Piece Together a Proper Sentence, or maybe if I was really spectacular I could get dubbed the Boy Who Made a Fool of Himself."

Hermione snorted and rested her head back against his shoulder.

"Oh, and Hermione?"

"Hmmm?"

"If anything, _you're_ out of _my_ league, not the other way around."

"Don't be ridiculous. Fame aside, because I know that's not really your doing, you are a far more powerful wizard than I am a witch. When it comes down to raw magic, you're beyond me, Harry."

"I doubt that, but even if I were, there's no arguing that you're way smarter than me."

"Books and cleverness," she returned, a small smile flitting across her face at the memory. Then she cocked her head faintly in thought. "Maybe we should concede that Kimmy has the right of it and leave it be. Well matched."

She could hear his smile in his voice. "Yeah, I can go along with that."

Hermione tugged at the blanket that had fallen slightly out of place during all their talk and movement and pulled it back to the front of their tightly nestled bodies, wrapping them both better in its folds. The tree twinkled on, brilliant and welcoming. She tilted her head back against Harry's shoulder and let her eyes drift shut. Harry's arms closed tighter around her. Without opening her eyes, she gave a dreamy half-smile. She probably ought to go back to her bedroom, but it was so much nicer on the couch with Harry. Maybe she'd just stay for a little while longer, there was no harm in—

"Good gracious," a third voice broke into their late night solitude. Hermione's eyes snapped open and she saw her grandmother standing in the entrance to the hallway in her old worn house robe. She was looking at them, bundled up together on the couch under a single blanket. Hermione could feel Harry tense, but she was insanely pleased that he didn't move to stop holding her.

"Gram?" Hermione stammered, bewildered. It seemed a bit late for her grandmother to be up and wandering the house.

"I think I should be the one looking befuddled, dear. Have you two been up all night?"

Hermione, puzzled, looked toward the living room window. To her amazement, the pale light of dawn was peeking around the edges of the curtains. She shifted in Harry's arms to glance back over her shoulder at him. He was conferring with the clock, which did indeed show that it was six in the morning. They'd stayed up the entire night talking. It really didn't seem like so much time had passed. She and Harry exchanged equally surprised looks.

Berti shook her head and made a 'tisking' noise. "Chatted away the night, did you?" She sounded suspiciously like she suspected it was actually much more than 'chatting' that had gone on.

Harry blushed.

"Honestly, Gram, we did. I couldn't sleep and came out for some cider and saw Harry was still up. We started talking and we… lost track of the time." Hermione stopped when something occurred to her and she drew away from Harry's hold to turn and face him. When he cast her a queer look, she smiled brightly and said, "Happy Christmas, Harry."

Harry immediately smiled back. "Happy Christmas."

"Youth," Berti sighed in exasperation to herself, but she was smiling just a little as she said it. Hermione took it for what it was, Berti acting the part of an affronted old woman when truthfully she was anything but. "Suppose I won't have to keep quiet in the kitchen while I start on Christmas lunch since Harry's already awake."

Harry disentangled himself from the blanket as he offered graciously, "I'll help you, Gram."

Berti eyed him closely. "What did I say about you doing anything that might constitute as working around here, young man?" Then she cast her eyes toward Hermione, innocently curled on the couch next to Harry, and she pursed her lips pensively. "On second thought… yes, Harry, dear, do come give an old grandmother a hand in the kitchen. Maybe if you duly impress me I'll not make this," she gestured at the two teenagers, "out as quite the scandal that I might otherwise be apt to." She sounded stern, but there was a half-smile on her face by the time she was finished 'chastising' them for the state they'd been in when Berti came into the living room.

Harry, to his immense credit, seemed to be getting better at reading Berti's meaning, because he smirked rather than get flustered or mortified. "All right."

Berti gave a satisfied nod and moved toward the kitchen. Harry got up off the couch to follow suit. "Do you want me to help?" Hermione asked.

Harry turned and looked down at her. "No, Gram and I can manage." Harry looked up to see that Berti had her back turned and then he bent down and quickly kissed Hermione chastely on the mouth.

"You're not fooling anyone," Berti called over her shoulder in nearly a sing-song voice.

Harry blushed and smiled. "I had better really impress her to make up for that," he remarked softly with a twinkle in his eye.

Hermione grinned. "Don't worry, by lunchtime she'll be a member of the Harry Potter fan club."

Harry chuckled then stopped abruptly as his expression turned discomfited. "There isn't actually a Harry Potter fan club, is there?"

Hermione laughed and shooed him toward the kitchen to amend for their shared early morning indiscretions (which had not actually been indiscretions at all, but Berti would be hard to convince of that). When Hermione was alone on the couch she gathered the blanket around her (it seemed impossibly large without Harry underneath it with her), lay down with her head on Harry's pillow, and breathed in deeply the smell of him that lingered on the linens. With a content smile tugging at her lips, she dozed off, snug and happy in the early morning hours of Christmas day.


	50. Chapter 50

Harry was in a mood that could not be dampened, not even by Hermione's grandmother and her tendency to be free, colorful, and vocal with her opinions. He was actually getting a bit used to them; it helped to see Jake get treated the same way. It made Harry think it might be the way Berti treated people she liked, she certainly seemed to like Jake, and he wouldn't mind having Hermione's grandmother like him.

He was almost aglow with a happiness that he would not have been able to even fathom in the days before he and Hermione were together. She redefined life for him in so many ways. He was having one of those moments when the world transfigured itself for her influence on him. This time, it was a very specific catalyst that made his world's axis tilt. His conversation last night with Hermione would not be forgotten any time soon. It was too amazing, too monumental, too bloody fantastic. He almost wished he had a pensieve. He never wanted a detail of the night to fade from his memory.

Hermione had finally learned about the vision he'd had in Trelawney's class. Or maybe it was just his mind being fanciful, like Hermione said. He might admit that was just as likely, and if Hermione leaned toward that interpretation of the divining arts he was apt to think that it was the correct one. In any case, he told her what he'd seen. He couldn't blame her for panicking a little at first, he had too, but when she sat with it a while she was far more amenable to the possibility it presented than he'd dared dream. Wonder of all wonders, she'd said she wanted that future, too.

No amount of 'tisking' from Berti was going to squelch that flame's luminosity inside him.

Although at the moment, Berti wasn't recriminating him or giving him the shrewd eagle eye. She was mixing the filling for a pie, humming a Christmas tune to herself as she did so. Harry was basting the turkey on the counter space a few paces to her left. They'd fallen into a fairly companionable silence. He even kind of liked her humming. It kept at bay any tension that might have seen fit to creep up in silence and she had a decent voice besides. Sometimes Aunt Petunia hummed to herself, but it was like the sick mewlings of a dying cat.

Hermione had fallen asleep on the couch. He liked that, too. He smiled to think of her sleeping a room away while he busied himself in the kitchen with her grandmother. It was all just so ruddy _normal, _almost more normal than he knew how to handle. But with the Grangers, it was getting dangerously effortless to let himself feel apart from his scar and his fame.

The sound of a yawn made Harry look toward the living room only to see Miranda shuffling into the kitchen in pajamas and slippers. She blinked sleepily, for a moment looking very much like sleep-mussed Hermione with her hair all out of place. "Happy Christmas, Mum," she said as way of greeting.

"Happy Christmas, Miri."

Miranda looked at Harry. "You're up awful early."

"Mmm hmmm," Berti hummed smartly.

Harry gave a crooked smirk. "Actually, I haven't been to bed yet."

"Oh… would that have anything to do with Hermione on the couch?" Miranda asked with a smile. "Kick you out of bed, did she?"

Berti grunted. "No, _I_ did. Though I would think you'd be a little less unconcerned to find your daughter on Harry's couch in the wee hours of the morning. And if you profess faith in that dog of Harry's again I may just have to have your head examined."

Harry and Miranda exchanged a knowing look, though Harry's was tinted pink with a slight blush.

"No, I was thinking more of Jake, actually," Miranda said with a straight face. "He had a _talk_ with Harry, you see." Miranda glanced toward Harry again and winked.

Harry almost grinned. Instead, he turned to Berti and concurred. "Yeah, he did."

"Put a mortal fear in Harry should he even _look_ at Hermione the wrong way," Miranda added.

"_Really_ terrifying bloke, Jake," Harry threw in at once.

"All right, now you two are just funning with me," Berti interjected into their bantering.

Miranda came up to the pair at the counter and ran an errant hand through Harry's hair, much as she was wont to do with Hermione's. Harry didn't even brace or tense anymore when Miranda unexpectedly touched him. He continued to tend to his cooking task with a light feeling in his chest that he'd never associated with Christmas before… it was usually a sensation he connected with Quidditch. That moment when his fingers closed around the snitch and won his team the match. The feeling in his chest now was very like that, but it was lasting longer and permeating deeper than the snitch catch feeling did.

Miranda took up a third chore in the kitchen, and for a time the three of them worked quietly; no one wanted to wake Hermione.

It was a short time later that Jake dragged himself out of bed. He announced his arrival with a cheerful, "Morning and happy Christmas one and all." Harry looked toward Jake and snorted to see the man standing with arms spread wide like he was addressing the Great Hall when it was packed with students. It only added to the comical effect that he was in his own pajamas and sporting a serious case of bed-head.

From behind Jake, Hermione grumbled from beneath the blanket.

Miranda chuckled.

Jake lowered his arms, glanced back at the blanket his daughter was clearly using for cover, then he turned back to those assembled in the kitchen. "What's with her? Is it feasible that our Hermione is losing her enthusiasm for Christmas?"

"Not likely," Miranda replied. "She's just knackered; she was up all night with Harry."

Jake looked critically at Harry a moment, then he scratched at his chin.

"No worries," Harry said on impulse, "I'm mortally afraid of you right now."

Jake blinked, puzzled, and looked toward Miranda. Something he saw in her face clued him in, because his eyes became playful and he fought a smirk. "Ahhh… yes, very good, then."

"The lot of you have gone spare," Berti bemoaned loudly.

Hermione groaned again, this time with more of an aggressive edge.

"As soon as the turkey's in the oven I think we can start in on the presents," Miranda said with a look around the kitchen and the respective state of their unfinished tasks. When she was done with that she looked toward the living room and her expression grew more thoughtful. "Though we'll have to brave waking Hermione. That won't be pretty."

Jake shuddered in agreement and sat down at the kitchen table. "Send in Harry. She won't cause him physical damage. I'm not too sure I'd come away so lucky if I tried to wake her."

"I think that's a brilliant idea," Miranda agreed immediately, "what better reason to have a boyfriend on hand than to throw him to the wolf?"

'To the lioness, actually,' Harry thought with a rush of affection, but aloud he said, "All right, I'll go wake her."

"Godspeed, son," Jake gave him a wave, teasingly suggesting Harry might never return.

Hermione had burrowed completely under the covers to block out the light from the window. Harry smirked at the sight of the mound of covers beneath which Hermione was ensconced. He knelt down next to the couch and began to tug at the blanket… only to be met with resistance. When he pulled harder a grumpy groan issued forth.

"Mione, time to get up."

Her disembodied groan turned plaintive.

Harry pulled more insistently at the covers and finally uncovered Hermione's head. Her hair was even wilder than usual after being ruffled under the blanket, looking rather like she'd been in a windstorm… if there was such a thing, it was bedsheet-blown. She looked up blearily at him and glowered. "S'too early, Harry."

"Yeah, I know, but the rest of the family wants to open presents and you're right in the middle of Christmas or else I might just let you have a lie in."

Hermione blinked and glanced toward the tree. She yawned. "Oh… yeah… Christmas." With that she rose to a sitting position and pushed the covers off to one side. Harry's mouth ticked in amusement and he stood to properly fold the blanket and drape it over the back of the couch.

"Well, look who's finally up," Jake said as he led the procession of adults from the kitchen into the living room.

"Happy Christmas, everyone," Hermione proclaimed around a massive yawn. Then she took Harry's hand and pulled him down to the floor. Harry, perplexed, went along and ended up sitting on the floor next to the tree beside Hermione. Her purpose became clear when Berti, Jake, and Miranda sat down on the couch, taking up the length of the piece of furniture.

In what was clearly a well-practiced family tradition, Hermione proceeded to sort through the presents until everyone had been given one. The one in Harry's hand was from Miranda. When Jake started to rip into his gift Harry saw that the others followed suit and he did likewise. His present turned out to be a movie. He puzzled over the title a moment before he looked up to see Miranda watching him.

"When Harry Met Sally?" he asked curiously.

"An American movie that Ben claims is the essential film on relationships, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it myself. It's centered around the age-old question, can a man and woman ever just be friends."

Unbidden, Harry's eyes went to Hermione. She turned her gaze down to her lap and the half-opened gift lying there as she fought back a smile.

"Well, a little late for this pair," Berti remarked lightly.

"I hope you like it," Miranda finished, disregarding her mother's aside.

"It sounds interesting, and I'm sure I can make Hermione watch it with me. Thank you."

"Why, that's right fetching," Jake held up a blue sweater from Berti for everyone to admire.

"Glad you like it, Jake.

"What a beautiful housecoat, Hermione," Berti fawned over her own present. "And it's so soft, too. My old one is nearly threadbare, so this new housecoat isn't a moment too soon. Thank you, dear."

"You're welcome, Gram." Hermione turned over the gift in her lap, one from Harry, while he watched her reaction. When she read the title of the thick, encyclopedic book and took in the picture on the cover she smiled.

"What have you got there, Hermione?" Jake asked.

Hermione looked up. "The Everything Fact Book on Big Cats."

Harry didn't doubt there were three relatively quizzical looks to that, but he was concerned only with Hermione's response to the gift. She turned her head to look at him and smiled, her eyes speaking to their shared secret, then Hermione at once began to flip through the book. She stopped on the section on the jaguar and slipped quickly into engrossment.

Feeling more confident, Harry turned to his next present, a bulky thing from Jake. When Harry tore the paper away it revealed a soccer ball, white and pristine.

"Thought you and I might try our hand at a bit of football," Jake explained to Harry as the younger man pondered the gift. When Harry looked up to regard Jake Hermione's father said, "I might not have much hope of going one to one with you in your sport, but we could have ourselves a man to man football match if you like."

Harry, oddly, found he liked that idea very much. More than he would have thought he would, and he couldn't say what made it sound so appealing. But it did. "That sounds great."

"I rather thought so, too. There was a time when I wasn't half bad at football either, if you can believe that."

"What sport does Harry play?" Berti interjected casually as she admired a set of earrings from Miranda.

"Lacrosse," Jake answered without hesitation and with a convincing smile. He'd obviously formulated that cover story before Christmas morning.

"Hmm, well that's nice. Oh, I best check on the pies. Don't let me interrupt anything." With that, Berti got up off the couch and went into the kitchen.

"Harry?" Miranda said lowly and questioningly when Berti was out of the room. Harry looked to Miranda and saw she was holding up a honey-colored dress he'd bought her… but while she was holding the dress she was meaningfully fingering the silver bow that had been affixed to the box.

Harry glanced toward the kitchen to make sure Berti was still occupied. "The seamstress who made it was a witch," Harry explained. "The threads and material are magical. When you put that on it will always be a perfect fit."

Miranda's expression lit up. "Oh, well that's just devilishly clever! I have to say, a real smart lot, those magical folk. Imagine how much you'd save on clothes if you didn't 'stress the seams', so to speak."

Jake looked closer at the dress. "I imagine once lunch is here I'll wish my trousers were like that."

Hermione laughed.

"Thank you very much, Harry. It's not only a beautiful dress, but I'll never have to fear it will be relegated to the back of the closet should I suffer too much of good living." Miranda said the last with an amused smile.

Jake threw a look over his shoulder and verified that Berti was still in the kitchen. He turned his attention back to Harry. "Think you may have time enough to explain these?" He held up two rectangular pieces of paper decorated with tiny figures darting around the front.

"They're tickets to next year's Quidditch World Cup."

Hermione gasped.

Jake's eyebrows rose, though whether it was more for Hermione's reaction or learning the nature of the gift was hard to say.

"I thought you and Miranda might like to go. Of course, there's no telling who the teams will be yet, but you said you'd like to see a Quidditch match so I didn't imagine the teams would make that much difference."

"I certainly would like to see a match, and you're right on the teams, makes no matter to a regular bloke like me. This ought to be dreadfully exciting to watch."

Miranda nodded. "Yes, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time, but maybe you'd rather take Harry to this match." Miranda turned to smile reassuringly at Harry. "I'm very touched that you'd buy a ticket for me, but surely you'd be better company for Jake than me. I think you boys could make a real smashing day of it. And I dare say Jake would find you much more entertaining than he would me."

"She's right on that count, son," Jake threw in before Harry could protest, "and besides, if Miranda and I were to go who would have the patience to spend half the time explaining it all to the dunderhead nonmagic fellow? I could do with having an expert on the subject on hand. What do you say, care to make it a blokes' day on the town?"

"If you're sure, Miranda…"

"Course I am," Miranda replied, then her gaze shifted to Hermione. "What is it, honey?"

Hermione was still staring gape-jaw at the tickets in Jake's hand. "Oh… I… nothing."

Jake frowned at Hermione's expression and he eyed the tickets a bit more warily. "What's the trouble? These tickets weren't illegally procured, were they?"

"No, it's not that, just…" Hermione turned to address Harry, "weren't those terribly expensive?"

Jake and Miranda blinked; they had no notion of the price of Quidditch World Cup tickets. Hermione's shock to the gift was the first clue they had as to real the monetary value of Jake's present.

Harry shrugged. "Not so much as you'd think, actually. I asked the Quidditch shop owner in Diagon Alley how I'd go about getting two tickets, I just wanted to know where to go, but he started contacting people right there and then, the name 'Harry Potter' got thrown around a bit, and before I knew it…" Harry gestured at the tickets.

"I didn't realize you were quite _that_… famous," Miranda mused aloud.

Jake hefted the tickets thoughtfully. "After that shopping trip to the magic store alley, I'd believe it." Jake looked up at his wife. "There didn't seem to be a single person there that didn't know Harry on sight."

"You get kind of used to it," Harry muttered, twitchy at the turn of conversation. It caused his abnormal existence to intrude upon this pocket of normal he'd discovered in Hermione's family.

"What did I miss?" Berti asked jovially as she rejoined the family after making certain none of their food was in peril of being ruined. Harry was almost relieved to have Berti show up, as it meant all discussion about Harry's undesired fame in the wizarding world would come to a screeching halt.

"Just remarking on how Harry appears to have figured my size perfectly," Miranda said as she held up the dress.

"Well, of course you'll have to try it on to know that, but it is very pretty nevertheless."

Miranda merely smiled and nodded.

"Here you go, Harry," Hermione said as she handed him a small package, "this one's from Gram."

Harry was feeling relaxed and comfortable again, the topic of his status in the wizarding world completely out of mind, and he turned to tearing the brightly colored paper from his present. He cleared away enough wrapping to expose the front of the box, and he stared at it with a crease on his brow as he tried to figure out what it was.

When he did figure it out, his eyes went saucer-wide and heat suffused his face so instantaneously and so hotly that it felt like he'd ducked his head into a blazing furnace. As though the box meant to jump up and bite him, he slapped the paper back over the cover of the box and looked up in something close to panic.

Unfortunately, his reaction had gotten the attention of everyone in the room.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, her tone laced with concern for the state he presented. "What did you get?"

"Nothing!" he yelped.

Hermione pursed her lips, scrutinizing the clues and concluding that it was most certainly the opposite of nothing. Blast him for having such an astute girlfriend.

"Mum," Miranda intoned wearily and dreadfully, "what did you get him?"

Berti just lifted an eyebrow.

Hermione leaned over and tried to pry the haphazardly concealed gift from Harry's hands. He wouldn't let her have it at first, for a second he resolutely shook his head to say Hermione wouldn't get it from him without brute force and maybe a hex or two, then he surrendered to complete humiliation and loosened his death-grip on the small box.

Hermione took the gift from him, brushed aside the wrinkled wrapping paper, read the logo on the box that had rattled Harry so, then her eyes went wide to match Harry's. "_Gram_!" she turned to look at her grandmother in borderline horror, her own complexion turning scarlet, "you got Harry _condoms_?!"

Jake very nearly ripped the new tie he'd been trying on and looked up sharply. Miranda gave a piteous groan.

"There is nothing wrong with safety, Hermione," Berti lectured, unruffled by the presumptuousness of her present and the ripple effect it had had on everyone in the room.

"Mum, _really_," Miranda grumbled.

"They're _fifteen_, Berti," Jake groused.

"You're as old as your soul, I say, and these two aren't a set of teenage souls, I can tell you that."

Before anyone else could speak there was a resounding knock on the front door. Harry leapt to his feet with an agility and speed nearly enough to compare to that of the jaguar. "I'll get it!" He all but fled from the family gathering.

"Who on earth could that be on Christmas morning?" Berti's voice trailed after Harry's retreat.

When Harry opened the door all thought about his condoms for Christmas vanished as he stared at the last person he'd ever expect to see on Berti's doorstep. The visitor's white beard was fluttering to one side in the wind and tugging at the bottoms of his robes, somehow looking a queer approximation of Saint Nick.

"Headmaster?" Harry stammered, completely baffled.

"Hello, Harry. I would wish you happy Christmas, but I fear it would make a liar of me." Dumbledore's manner was serious and grim, his eyes intense and void of any of the whimsical amusement that so often seemed to dance just behind the half-moon spectacles.

"Who is it, Harry?" Miranda called.

Harry stared up at Dumbledore, still dumbstruck. He couldn't seem to really grasp that Dumbledore was standing on the threshold of Harry's escape to normalcy. It was the normal life in the house and the fantastic and magical outside. Dumbledore was standing there trying to bring it back in when Harry felt that he'd finally shoved it out to the cold to at last enjoy some manner of reprieve.

"May I come in?" Dumbledore asked when it became apparent Harry was not going to invite the headmaster in of his own volition, if for no other reason than he was still boggling over Dumbledore's arrival.

Harry snapped out of his stupor. "Oh. Uh… yeah…" he stepped aside and Dumbledore entered Berti's house.

Harry looked past the new guest to the family gathered in front of the Christmas tree. Hermione was sitting on the floor still as stone, her expression locked on the elder wizard and her attention razor-sharp. Completely gone was the care-free, laughing young woman Harry had come to know in Hermione when it came to Christmas. Miranda and Jake were merely curious; they apparently knew who Dumbledore was or knew enough to recognize a wizard from their daughter's other life. Berti was gawking at the stranger in robes that had walked into her home.

Dumbledore managed a courteous smile for the last, as though naturally inclined to assuage any concerns about his intentions. "You must be Roberta Richardson, Hermione's grandmother. A real pleasure to meet you."

"And you are…?"

"Albus Dumbledore."

Hermione spoke up then. "Dumbledore's the headmaster at the school Harry and I attend."

"Oh. I see. Well then, what brings you here on Christmas morning, Mister Dumbledore?"

Harry didn't want to know. He didn't want to hear why Dumbledore had come to Berti's on Christmas morning. It would end all this contentment, he knew that with a sickness in his stomach. 'Go away,' he thought longingly, almost willing the headmaster to hear his thoughts. Dumbledore could just turn around and leave and it wouldn't have to destroy this peace Harry had found. He'd gladly go back to agonizing over condoms and enduring Berti's colorful comments and making him blush all shades of red. He'd be all too happy to weather that, if only Dumbledore would change his mind and leave.

Instead, he turned to Harry.

Harry reluctantly met Dumbledore's eyes. The older man was studying Harry closely, as though seeking answers beyond his eyes, straight into the core of all that Harry was. "I regret that I must be the bringer of ill tidings."

Harry's heart was pounding wildly. 'It's Ron', he thought at once, in certain dread. 'It's Sirius. It's Ginny and George and Fred and Molly and Neville and Seamus and Colin Creevey'… it became so many people that Harry couldn't take the strain of all their unknown fates. As much as he hated to hear what Dumbledore came to tell him, it would be a relief to know who it _wasn't_. How many lives would he not have to imagine gone, for one more day? It would be worth knowing the doom of one. 'Let it just be one,' Harry's mind wailed.

"I'm afraid there was an attack on your aunt and uncle's home last night. Your cousin was killed."

"_Goodness_!" Berti gasped, but she was the only one to breathe a sound at the news. Everywhere else a deafening silence had enveloped the room. Harry just stared at the headmaster. It took a moment to register.

"Dudley?" he said numbly. He thought it would be someone from the world of magic, someone he'd befriended, gone to school with, fretted over exams with and commiserated with over Snape's unfortunate personality. He couldn't quite decide what it felt like to know it had been Dudley, the boy who'd made his childhood a living hell. He didn't know where he'd finally find himself on the issue when his head stopped spinning. Angry? Sad? Guilty? In some horrible, despicable way, slightly happy? He honestly didn't know. Dudley had tormented him, beat him up regularly, despised every minute that Harry lived and breathed and was a stain on his perfect home life with overindulgent parents.

And now he was dead.

"What happened? Have the police been notified?" Berti asked.

"No. We're handling this internally for the time being, taking into consideration the specifics of the attack," Dumbledore answered.

No one was prepared for the backlash to Dumbledore's off-hand reply. "The _school_?! What is the school doing handling a _murder_ internally?!"

Dumbledore looked toward Hermione. Understanding registered on his face in the next second. "Ahh… well…" but even the headmaster didn't know how to backpedal out of the jam he'd put himself in. But then, how was he to know Hermione's grandmother didn't know her granddaughter was a witch?

Hermione was the one to speak to Berti's outrage. "It's not what you think. Harry and I don't go to a normal school, Gram."

Berti looked quickly toward Hermione, still outraged at the flippant manner in which the headmaster of a school presumed to handle a homicide 'internally'. "What? Then what kind of school is this that apparently cares to undertake _internal_ murder investigations? Are you two attending some kind of espionage academy? Are you two training to be cold-blooded killers?"

"No!" Hermione vehemently denied any suggestion of the sort. "No, Gram, not espionage… magic."

There was a pause. "I beg your pardon?"

Hermione took a deep breath and lifted her head. "Harry and I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry's a wizard. And I'm a… witch."

Berti narrowed her eyes at Hermione and seemed to try to see past the falsehood. Her expression grew all the more dour and disappointed as the seconds wore on and Hermione did not cave, did not so much as crack. Finally, Berti said in a low voice, "If that's your spy school's cover story for their real nature, it's a poor one. I'd have thought you would be smarter than that, Hermione."

"She's telling the truth," Jake volunteered. "Hermione _is_ a witch."

Berti turned agog eyes toward her son-in-law next. "Are you all mad? That's impossible. There is no such thing as magic!"

"I am sure this must come as an enormous shock, madam, but I can assure you there is," Dumbledore said.

"Sir, I hope you'll take no offense when I say that I'm not ready to believe that _my_ Hermione can do _magic_. Bad enough my family expects me to believe it, but to have it from a stranger…"

"Mum," Miranda interjected gently. "You must have always realized there was something special about Hermione."

Berti pursed her lips. "Of course I have."

"Haven't you ever tried to put your finger on it?

"She can do things you and I could only dream of doing. She has a gift greater than any you've ever imagined."

Berti was silent. It seemed she could not decide how to stand her ground against the preposterous idea of magic being real, and her granddaughter practicing it no less, when the numbers were so against her. At last, she turned a long, measuring look on Hermione. Berti looked at Hermione as though she'd never seen her own granddaughter before… maybe she understood at that moment that, in a way, she never truly had. Hermione watched her grandmother carefully for her next move.

"Tell me truthfully, Hermione," Berti finally said, "is all of this true? Are you really a… a _witch_?"

"Yes, Gram. I am. I've always been. It doesn't change who I am. It doesn't make me any less your granddaughter."

"Dear," Berti said, almost as though insulted, "I will _always_ know you're my granddaughter, no matter what." She considered her granddaughter critically a moment, as one might a puzzling work of art. "Would you be able to do a spot of this magic, then? Show me."

Hermione winced. "I can't. I'm underage; it's not allowed for me or Harry to use any magic outside the school grounds." Just then, Hermione stopped and looked around, noticing something amiss for the first time. "Where's Kimmy?"

Harry only then registered that the house elf had been absent for the entirety of Christmas morning. Only then did his danger sense spike at the fact. Things had been that good before Dumbledore arrived.

"Don't you think there's rather a bit more to concern ourselves with right now than Harry's dog?" Berti queried.

"She's not my dog, actually," Harry said in a voice that seemed far-off to his own ears, "She's not even a dog."

Berti's mouth dropped open, but before she could ask, Dumbledore said, "She's been in close communication with me since the attack on your family, serving as a live link to you, though on your end a bit more… unseen a presence, and now for reasons I better understand." He cast a brief glance toward Berti. "I called to her when I learned of your cousin's death to insure you had not been attacked as well. She's been keeping me up to date on the state of things here while I was at the scene of the crime.

"Harry… I relented to your and Miss Granger's desire for as near a normal Christmas as you could manage, for there was still the possibility that Voldemort would keep to ground while he built up his forces and that you might yet be able to enjoy a relatively trouble-free holiday. I did so want that for you; I know you've sought little else than to be free of the worry. I had counted on Kimmy's presence being enough." The headmaster rested a hand on Harry's tensed shoulder. "I hope you can see now that that can no longer be. Voldemort sent Death Eaters to your aunt and uncle's house for _you_. Their frustration to find three muggles with no knowledge of your whereabouts… the tragic fate of your cousin aside, his failure to get to you will likely inflame Voldemort further. I have to insist you return to Hogwarts. Well enough professors have stayed over the holiday that you'd be much safer having them near for protection. And I will be there to keep watch."

Harry nodded mutely. Returning to Hogwarts. It made sense. He couldn't expect Dumbledore to let him stay when one of his own family had been killed.

"I'm going back, too," Hermione stated as she stood up.

Dumbledore gave an acknowledging nod. He looked to have expected nothing else from Hermione than to demand to go with Harry.

Harry was still in a daze. His cousin had been killed because of him. He'd never liked the Dursleys, but he'd never wanted them dead. Even when he was really furious at them, when he'd been four years old and crying in his locked cupboard, quietly so no one would hear him and make it worse for him, he'd not gone so far as to wish them killed. Usually, he just wanted to be anywhere but where he was, anywhere but where they were. He wanted to leave them, but leave them alive and as horrid and mean as always. He never wanted to see them lying on the floor with unblinking, lifeless eyes, like Cedric's eyes had been in the graveyard.

Then Harry glanced up at the others in the room. At Hermione, ready to walk out the door right then with him. He loved her for that. Almost as much as he was scared for her. He looked at Jake and Miranda watching with frightened eyes… frightened for their daughter's safety, but for his, too. He thought he might love them, too, for how they had so selflessly allowed him into their home and lives. He'd been a dangerous target that they'd given a place in their family gatherings and traditions, so close to all that he had dreamed and wished for the whole of his buggered up life. He looked at Berti who was taxing and so apt to embarrass him, but she treated him like she treated Jake and there was a peculiar comfort in that. It struck him then that Berti had been the one who was supportive of him and Hermione being together the fastest, even quicker than Jake and Miranda. It had been veiled in all her japes and jokes and teasing, but there from the start. Strange how that had never really registered until now.

Harry looked at them all, people who had become precious and dear to him, and he couldn't walk out and leave them to luck.

"The Grangers… Gram…," Harry said lowly before he dragged his eyes back to Dumbledore. The older man seemed to know Harry's thoughts, for he gave a small nod. "They'll be taken care of, Harry, I can promise you that."

Harry dropped his eyes to the floor, took a breath to marshal his fortitude, then stepped away from Dumbledore to face Hermione's family. He looked up and met Miranda's eyes first. She looked so terribly worried for him that Harry wanted her to wrap him up in a hug. He had never wanted that from anyone save Hermione before, but at that moment he wanted Miranda to hug him, maybe kiss him on the forehead and run a hand through his hair, too. Harry straightened. "You should all leave with us."

Miranda and Jake took each other's hands.

"What is it, Harry?" Berti asked, for once no tease or taunt in her voice. It made her sound so confident… like Hermione.

"You're in danger. It's a long story… but I can't leave until I know you're going to be safe."

Berti looked still too thrown to put it all together, but Jake spoke for the lot of them. "We'll come with you."

Harry needed strength. He needed to find a grip on sanity before he absolutely flew apart.

Suddenly Hermione was at his side, slipping her hand into his, and he clung to her.

"I suggest you all pack as though for an extended holiday," Dumbledore said to all present, "and if you find your luggage a bit overburdened I'd be glad to work a bit of minimizing magic. Oh, and Miss Granger, I had Kimmy send your familiar along to the school earlier this morning, anticipating your decision to return with Harry, so don't fret when you can't find him."

Jake and Miranda wordlessly stood and headed for their shared bedroom to pack. After another moment studying Hermione, Berti rose and left the living room to tend to her own preparations.

Harry closed his eyes. He hadn't felt tired for his sleepless night until just then. "Headmaster?" He turned to face Dumbledore. "I need to stop by Gringotts… and I need to see my aunt and uncle."

Hermione's hold on him intensified.

"Are you certain?" Dumbledore asked gravely.

Harry nodded. His aunt and uncle's son died because of him. He didn't know what he would say to them, what he _could_ say, but he couldn't slink away and pretend Dudley wasn't dead.

"Very well."

With reluctance, Harry disentangled his fingers from Hermione's to see to his meager bit of packing… football and all.


	51. Chapter 51

A/N: This chapter is shorter than usual, I realize that, but the scene that came after this one deserved, in my mind, a chapter all its own for the significance of the material it covers. Just to whet your appetites a bit :)

* * *

If Berti had any lingering doubts about the existence of magic, and any remaining concerns about the collective sanity of her family members, those issues were put to rest soon after everyone was back in the living room with luggage bulging. Dumbledore produced his wand, gave a quick flick, and all the suitcases and bags shrank to be no larger than a ring box. Berti shrieked at first, regarded her miniaturized baggage with a sharp eye, then looked long and hard at Dumbledore, Harry, and Hermione in turn. She didn't say anything about her first exposure to the reality of magic, and neither did she put up another moment of protest or utter another word of doubt about anything that followed.

And if anything would test a muggle's mettle when faced with the wizarding world for the first time, it would be the events that followed that luggage-shrinking incident. Dumbledore led them to the closet in the bedroom that Hermione had been using during their holiday stay, and without a word he opened the door. Just inside, wearing a gray pin-striped pair of boxers with pin-striped suspenders to match, was Kimmy. She looked somber and closer to her age than Harry or Hermione had ever seen her. Berti balked for the briefest moment at the sight of the strange creature in her closet.

"_That's_ Kimmy," Hermione whispered to her grandmother, and with a quirk of one eyebrow and a press of her lips Berti took it in stride.

Dumbledore parted the coats in the closet to reveal the small-scale door to Kimmy's portable home never-away-from-home. Another swish of his wand caused the door to enlarge to four times its normal size. After that, it was small matter for the entire group to walk into Kimmy's likewise _engorgio_ed abode. Berti lagged behind by only the smallest degree, but follow she did, without speaking a word.

They had to do a bit of hop-scotching over Britain to get where they needed to be, like travelers with connecting flights. From Kimmy's fireplace they flooed to a public fireplace in Diagon Alley. Berti was a trooper as she trailed after those in her family more familiar with the magic shopping center of sorts. Harry excused himself to accompany Dumbledore alone to the wizarding bank. His errand lasted no more than five minutes, and when he was finished Dumbledore took them all to yet another public fireplace for the next leg of their journey. That floo connected them to a wizard's hearth outside of Surrey. The resident welcomed his fire-born guests warmly, exchanged familiar words with Dumbledore, was gracious to the muggles (enough to make one suspect he was muggle-born), did a double-take when he realized who Harry was, then it was out the front door like a pack of vagabonds, the whole of their belongings stuffed in their pockets.

From there they walked, a strange entourage, though there was no one to witness it. The streets were empty; everyone was inside the houses opening gifts and spending time with their loved ones. It made the multitude of houses the happier on the inside for it, but the streets outside the gloomier. Harry knew these streets; they'd always been bleak and foreboding to him, but today was by far the worst the streets had ever been.

When they reached the single-digit block of Privet Drive Harry sought his aunt and uncle's house. It wasn't hard to spot. From nearly the entire block away Harry could see the damage. There were enormous black scorch marks on the façade. The paint was scorched and burnt. The grass was dead in seemingly random strips and patches, as though a Dementor had frolicked in the lawn and left decay in its wake. On the second floor… Harry paused and Jake nearly ran into him from the back when Harry saw that part of the house was _missing_. Dudley's bedroom wall was gone, destroyed, torn open and leaving the room within bare like the innards of a mauled deer. The car had been upturned and set on fire. Flames still licked from the windows, though feeble and flailing because everything that could burn had already.

There were wizards and witches everywhere, swarming the place. Probably Aurors, most likely some ministry officials, too.

Harry hadn't been prepared to see the house so devastated. He thought of how immaculately clean Petunia always insisted the house be, and all for what? It was a wreck now. No amount of dusting and vacuuming in the world would put the house to rights. Vernon made such a fuss about the yard, because appearances were all-important and the yard was out there for all to see, and that was ruined, too.

Harry approached the house with the others, in a state of mild shock. He wondered why the muggle police weren't thick as flies around the place… or thick as Aurors, as seemed to be the case. It was obvious from a block away that there had been an act of unbelievable violence in this quiet neighborhood… why wasn't it causing more of an uproar?

As the group got closer, Harry was less certain of the damage he thought he'd noted from the end of the street. A house nearer and he could swear that he'd only imagined the Aurors. In fact… he wasn't entirely certain he was on the right street. He started to look at the other houses on the block, trying to read their numbers to get his bearings, when Dumbledore waved his wand and Harry blinked. There it was, as he'd seen it before. The house in shambles, the yard destroyed, the wizards and witches working over the house like industrious ants scurrying around a shattered mound.

"Confudus charm when you get closer," Dumbledore explained.

Harry didn't respond other than to nod dumbly.

When they reached four Privet Drive they walked on to the browned, brittle grass and stepped over gouges in the ground. The Aurors took note of their arrival but only one, presumably the head Auror, approached them. "Dumbledore," he said gravely and then spared a meaningful, intent look at Harry before turning again to Dumbledore, "I hadn't thought you'd bring the boy."

Harry was too far gone, staring at the damage to Dudley's former room up-close, to neither notice nor care that the Auror was talking about him as though he wasn't right there.

"Harry asked to come."

"That isn't wise. You're endangering him by bringing him here."

"Not as much as you believe, I should think. Voldemort will not return when a quarter of the Aurors in the Ministry of Magic are here," Dumbledore replied confidently. For a moment Dumbledore examined the damage to the house. "Have you found anything?"

The Auror looked sidelong at Harry for a few seconds then shook his head and sighed. "Nothing we didn't already know. Nothing that will help us track You Know Who down." The Auror growled under his breath. "After he was defeated the first time we were so _sure_ we'd whittled down the ranks of You Know Who's followers enough to neuter them from posing this kind of threat ever again. We thought it would safeguard against this."

"We all let hope enchant us, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said.

"Where are my aunt and uncle?" Harry asked as he turned from examining the house to address the Auror for the first time.

The Auror regarded Harry seriously then ticked his chin toward the house. "Inside."

Harry set his eyes on the front door and took a long, deep breath.

Hermione came up beside him and touched his hand. "You don't have to do this, Harry."

Harry's jaw set. He was sure of only one thing right now. "No, I do."

Jake placed his hand on Harry's shoulder. "We're with you, son."

That gave Harry more courage than he would have predicted. With a pause to steel himself for the worst, he started toward the front door. Without having to look, he could feel all of them following after him. Hermione, Dumbledore, Miranda, Jake, and Berti. Even Berti didn't drop back, utterly baffled and deluged with more new information than she could comfortably process though she was. They all bolstered his resolve with their support.

It carried Harry to the front step.

The door was unlocked. Harry pushed it open and already it was like another reality had shoved into this one in the small space taken up by four Privet Drive. This looked nothing like the house Aunt Petunia kept. It was unfit to be seen. It would reflect badly on the Dursleys to have their home look like this. Debris was everywhere. Glass littered the floor. Burn marks blackened the white banister of the stairs. The carpet was ripped and curled in the corners like wet parchment. The photos on the wall were smashed or missing or merely black pits. Aurors were here, too, pouring over every inch of the house.

Harry stepped into the foyer and gazed around. His cupboard under the stairs no longer had a door. How many times when he was little had he wished for that? Just as many times as he'd wished the door was ten times thicker, he decided.

Harry walked slowly through the house… what was left of it. It smelled. Of fire and death and fear. Harry knew what each of those smelled like, and the house smelled like each in turn.

Where had Dudley died? Would there be… marks? A bloodstain, a residual image burned on the wallpaper like some victim of a magical Mount Vesuvius? Maybe there hadn't been enough left to salvage for a decent memorial service. Dudley Dursley might be mourned at his funeral using an empty casket.

How had he died? Was it quickly? Somehow, deep in his bones, Harry didn't think so. Dudley was not brave, just cruel. He would have screamed. He would have cried for his mother who could not save him and he would have flailed and maybe that made Harry a monster for being the cause of it.

"_I want the lot of you out of my house! You've no right! Your kind are the reason my son's dead!_"

Harry's every sense sought out his uncle at the harsh, sudden sound of his voice. He sounded different… he'd never sounded quite like that before. It was more than angry, less than the indomitable monster he'd seemed to a five-year-old undernourished child. More and less, less and more, Vernon and unlike him all at once… like the house around him.

Harry found his aunt and uncle in the kitchen; he needed only follow Vernon's bellows. Vernon and Petunia were both still in pajamas, though smeared with soot and… and blood. That answered some of Harry's questions, though he could have gone just as well without having those particular answers.

Vernon's face was purple and twisted with agony and rage. Petunia was shaking and crying, a frail waif at her husband's side. Her hair was a frightful mess. Her hands were red.

An Auror had been trying to reason with the Dursleys, to no avail, when those arriving with Dumbledore came into the kitchen, Harry at the head of the procession.

"_I don't give a damn who you're looking for! GET OUT! I want none of your kind here!_"

Petunia, simpering, looked up and her watery gaze fell on Harry. Instantly, her eyes widened and she wailed like a dying beast.

Vernon's eyes snapped to Harry. His expression turned darker violet… and murderous.

Harry swallowed. Where to start? "Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia… I heard… I'm _so_ sorry…"

Without a word, Vernon marched swiftly across the room and unceremoniously punched Harry in the face with his ham-like fist.

Several things happened at once. Harry went down from the blow, because he knew it hurt less to follow inertia when it came to his uncle's 'lessons', taking into consideration Vernon's advantage of size. Harry toppled to the floor with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. In the same instant, Hermione lunged forward toward the Dursleys, just as Dumbledore caught her, taking special care to keep her hands restrained. Berti audibly gasped. Jake immediately stepped between Vernon and Harry, heedless of the fact that Vernon easily outweighed Jake by seven stones. "_Sir_! Please, restrain yourself!"

Vernon glared down viciously at Harry, as though unaware of Jake right in front of him blocking his way to Harry. His rage had given him tunnel-vision. "_YOU_! It's your fault! You killed our Dudley!"

Harry brought up a hand to his mouth and winced when he touched the place where his lip had split. He wiped at the blood trickling down his chin as he looked up at Vernon. "I'm sorry… I didn't _want_—"

"But you _DID_! You killed him just as much as _they_ did, you hideous little freak. We took you in, and this is what we get for our trouble? We should have smothered you the moment you turned up on our doorstep, would have saved us _so. much. GRIEF_! Would have saved _Dudley_!!"

Petunia dropped to her knees crying and rocking to and fro.

"You wouldn't have _dared_…" Hermione seethed hotly and pulled ineffectually at Dumbledore's restraining hands.

Vernon's fierce gaze snapped over to Hermione. "I nearly _did_, you bloody little wretch. But Petunia said 'he's my sister's, Vernon, we can't just kill him'. She thought he might be set straight! _Ha_!" Vernon turned mad eyes back on Harry. "Would that your life had been traded for Dudley's, you worthless shit!"

Harry slowly got to his feet and presently stood facing his furious uncle, Jake still standing firmly between them. Harry wiped a streak of blood off on the back of his hand and glanced at the stain. With abnormal calm, Harry looked his uncle square in the eye and said simply, "That's the last time you do that, Uncle Vernon."

"You're damn right it is! I never want to see you near us again! Consider yourself homeless, and good riddance; you've been filth in this house from day one! I hope the people who did this find you. I hope you _pay_ for what you've done to our family!"

From behind him arms were tugging at Harry lovingly, drawing him into a protective hold. Miranda. Harry went without a fight. Jake risked taking his eyes off Vernon to glance toward Harry, checking on him in his stretch of silence.

Vernon spat caustically at Jake and Miranda, "You'll get the same if you associate with this freak of nature. He's a curse. You're bloody more than welcome to him. Now _get him out of my house_!" With that, Vernon whirled around and returned to his wife's side.

Miranda's arms held Harry tighter, and Harry was worried if she kept doing that he might do something frail. Like cry. He couldn't do that. His threadbare control was all he had, all the Dursleys had left him in the last five minutes. Harry couldn't show his aunt and uncle such weakness. He couldn't be the pathetic little boy they always professed him to be. If he broke, he'd become that; he'd make them right. He couldn't let it happen. It was ingrained; he never let them see him in pain.

Harry struggled in Miranda's hold.

"Shhh… honey," Miranda said gently, "it's all right."

But it wasn't. Harry swallowed the lump in his throat and pulled himself from Miranda's safe, motherly arms. His voice was on the cusp of broken even to his own ears. "Don't. I… I need a couple minutes. I have to get out of here."

Dumbledore, still holding on to Hermione (for she still looked fit to throw a few hexes at the Dursleys), said gravely, "Harry… you can't go far. You can't leave the premises. It's too dangerous."

Harry was about to hit the point of frantic. "I… fine, I won't, I just… I need to go." Anywhere but this house, anyplace away from Vernon and Petunia.

At that Dumbledore gave a wordless, understanding nod, and Harry pushed past the Grangers, past Gram, past the Aurors, and out of the wrecked house of his tormented childhood. It had been a place of darkness before, but now the blackness was suffocating. It was stained with death, and for all Vernon's ranting he was right about one thing… it was because of Harry that Dudley was dead.


	52. Chapter 52

Hermione felt very much like the proverbial caged lion as she paced a patch of blackened grass just in front of four Privet Drive. Her family was close by, Dumbledore was talking to the head Auror again, and the other Aurors were still examining every inch of the muggle home for clues. At the edge of the Dursleys' property line, practically in the street, was Harry. It was the farthest he could go in his need to escape without being too far to be safe. In deference to his wishes, everyone was keeping well away from him. He was standing perfectly still, his back to the house, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

He could not have been standing there for more than ten minutes, but to Hermione it felt like hours.

She'd heard Harry say he needed a couple of minutes, her mother had insisted Hermione respect that, but everything in her screamed for her to go to him. He was hurting. She had to help him, it wasn't a matter of want or desire, she _had_ to. It was as inarguable as the sun rising in the east.

Hermione paced more furiously. She couldn't stay still. When she passed near her mother, Miranda reached out and touched her shoulder. "Hermione… please, sweetie, calm down."

"How can I?" Hermione retorted, lowly enough that her voice wouldn't carry to where Harry stood across the yard. He was probably making an effort not to notice anything going on at the house, anyway. "Did you hear what that horrible man said to him?"

Miranda frowned. "He was upset; he just lost his son." Miranda tried to tug Hermione closer but Hermione felt she might go stark raving mad if she was confined. She shied from the invitation for comfort, shrugged off her mother's hand, and stood a pace away. Miranda's expression became troubled by that, but she didn't speak to it. Instead what she did say was, "You know that Mister Dursley was wrong about Harry no longer having a home, don't you?"

Hermione gave a tight smile. "I know, Mum." Hermione glanced toward Harry forlornly. "I don't know if Harry knows."

The sight of Harry alone and aching set Hermione to pacing again.

Dumbledore rejoined the Grangers after speaking a bit longer with the Auror in charge. Hermione whirled to face the headmaster, expectant and impatient. Hermione could see the worried look on her mother's face as she watched her daughter. Hermione couldn't make her mother understand the restless _necessity_ in her blood. Didn't they realize she _needed_ to go to Harry?

Apparently, Dumbledore alone did. He studied Hermione a moment then said, "Miss Granger… contrary to Harry's earlier demands to be alone, I believe he would benefit greatly from your presence."

Hermione didn't have to be told twice. She turned at once and started across the yard toward her boyfriend. The knot of manic energy in her chest began to uncoil the closer she got to him.

Her steps slowed when she was less than five feet from him. He was standing so still he might have been made of stone or perhaps under the effects of the _petrificus totalus_. "Harry?" she ventured.

Harry didn't move at her voice but Hermione could _sense_ he would have invited her to his side if he had bothered to talk. She came up beside him and looked up into his face searchingly. Harry was staring down the street with unfocused eyes, lost inside himself. There was a tension in his jaw and a tightness in the skin around his eyes that betrayed his anguish.

Hermione carefully curled her hand around his crooked elbow.

"Mione," he croaked, and Hermione leaned closer. Harry's lips moved soundlessly a moment, then he blinked and turned his head to look at her. The wind ruffled his dark hair as he faced her. There was something powerfully raw in his gaze that took Hermione's breath away. She didn't know what it meant but it reached into her very core.

Harry stared intently at her face, into her eyes, then he said, "I never thanked you."

She didn't really know what to make of that; fair to say it was not what she'd been expecting him to say in that moment. "For what?"

Harry slipped his hand from his pocket to wrap his fingers around her wrist, his fingertips on her pulse point. Not quite holding her hand, but holding on to her just the same. He looked straight at her; he may as well have been looking straight _into_ her for the intensity of his eyes. And when he spoke, there was a powerful frankness to his voice. "For what you did the night Cedric died."

Hermione's lungs seemed to stop working in a breathless second. Her heart began beating wildly. A tight flutter hit her in the bottom of her stomach and raced between her legs. Her knees threatened to shake for a fleeting moment. Her thoughts returned to that night, that unspoken night, when she had given Harry the most precious treasure she had ever possessed. She'd accepted it as an extreme act of love for a desperate friend. She had not permitted herself to think on it beyond that. Harry had seemed to agree to the unspoken vow to let it be just what it had been, a supreme act of caring from a friend in a dire moment, because neither of them had ever broached the subject. Hermione was okay with that. Harry was all right, and that was all she'd asked of that night's events.

But now, in his eyes… it wasn't a nameless form anymore. He wasn't leaving it at that night, an incredible moment in time that had simply come and gone. He was making it their now.

Hermione felt immense, intense emotions threatening to drag her under. A part of her wanted so very much to drown. Instead she reached up and touched Harry's face… in much the way she'd touched him in bed that fateful night. "You never have to thank me for that, Harry," she whispered earnestly.

Harry shook his head. "I should never _stop_ thanking you. Hermione, if you hadn't… if you hadn't been there… if you hadn't been with me…" he brought up both hands to rest them on either side of her slender neck, thumbs tracing her jaw line. He looked deeply into her eyes so she might see the truth, and what a profound truth it was. It rendered Hermione breathless; she couldn't even think for being lost in Harry's burning, direct gaze. "Without you, I honestly think I may have gone mad." Then the intensity in his eyes shifted, went from fierce conviction to blinding adoration, and he said in a soft voice, "I love you."

Hermione closed her eyes in unmitigated joy. She had, of course, known Harry loved her. But he'd never said the words. He didn't trust himself to believe he could love the right way, not enough to be permitted to say it. It made Hermione ache inside, but she knew that he didn't believe he deserved the very thing most children took as a birthright, knowing love, any more than he could once have fathomed being loved. He _knew_ his parents had loved him, but it was like knowing he'd be a fraction of his weight if he were standing on the moon; it was a truth he could know intellectually but couldn't conceptualize emotionally. And for all that, he wouldn't blaspheme the idea of love by saying it; Hermione knew that he didn't think he'd earned it. There were rites of passage he was waiting on before he dared to tell anyone that he, Harry Potter, loved them. Even with her. He had trials to overcome to prove to himself that he was worthy of telling Hermione that he loved her. She'd never pushed him for a proclamation; it would have been pointless and caused Harry unnecessary anxiety. If he couldn't say the word she wouldn't force it out of him. It was just a word. She'd had other ways of knowing. Hermione went on faith in his touch and his kiss and his smile to believe he loved her in the absence of those three words. But to hear them… it was a missing piece of the puzzle of her heart. It would seem that if Harry had imagined tests to his right to claim to love someone, he'd passed them.

Hermione opened her eyes and gazed up at him. "I love you, too."

For a moment they stayed like that, staring into each other's eyes and basking in the aftermath of their proclamations. For that moment, the mangled house and mangled family so near was forgotten.

It was Harry who broke the perfect stillness first. "I… I have one of your Christmas presents." He removed one hand from her person to reach into his pocket and pull out a small box. "You never got to open it… here." He held it out to her.

Puzzled but curious, Hermione took the brightly wrapped gift, looked up questioningly into Harry's eyes, then proceeded to tear off the Christmas paper. The first thing she noticed about the box was the engraved seal of Gringotts Wizard Bank on the front. Even more perplexed than before, Hermione opened the box to see what was inside.

It was a gold medallion, linked to a chain so it might be worn like a necklace. It was the size of the silver dollar Uncle Ben had sent her once when she'd asked about American money. This coin, however, was pure gold. Hermione looked at it closer. Written around the circumference, encircling the more ornate version of the Gringotts emblem that was on the front of the box, was goblin script. All witches and wizards could read some goblin, as it was the language of their currency, but the characters on the medallion weren't those typically used on wizard money. It required Hermione to study them more closely than she would have the writing on regular wizard money.

Hermione slowly put together some of the key words on the medallion, and when it clicked what she was looking at she gasped. It was a Full Rights Vault Granting medallion. It deemed all of Harry's fortune equally hers. It was the wizarding world's equivalent of the muggle practice of putting her name on the account.

"Harry…" she began only to find herself quite speechless.

Harry gave her a nervous smile. "I want to know that if anything… if anything happens to me you'll be taken care of. You can do whatever you want with the money, it makes no difference to me. I trust you."

It could be all the gold in Britain or a pence, that didn't matter to Hermione. What _did_ matter was a rather significant legal detail concerning the medallion. The particular medallion Harry had given her granted another person complete rights to a wizard or witch's vault on the basis of that individual being the original vault-holder's spouse. It was a tradition from ages past; goblins were very stubborn to change their ways. In no other area of wizard law would it be binding, but in wizard banking law…

Did Harry even realize what he'd done? Hermione didn't know that he did; Harry was still very much a babe in the woods when it came to so many things in the wizarding world. He may very well have given her the medallion with no knowledge of what it would mean in goblin legal terms, beyond giving her access to his wealth.

"Harry… when you got this for me, did the goblin who gave it to you explain what it is? Do you… do you understand what it means in Gringott law?"

Harry looked directly at her and nodded.

Hermione gaped. Her heart was pounding almost too hard to bear.

"It doesn't… if you never want it to go beyond banking law, I… I understand. But I… when we're old enough… I want to marry you."

For a few second she could only stare openly at him, dumbstruck.

When it sank in, Hermione wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him senseless. Instead she slipped her free hand inside his open jacket and rested her palm and splayed her fingers on his chest (she could feel his heart pounding almost as hard as hers) and stood on her toes to kiss him on the mouth, feather-soft, mindful of the cut on his lip.

Of course, in the back of her mind, she'd known they would get married one day. They'd already agreed to children; it only made sense. But she never would have expected Harry to propose so soon, when they were still so young. But it didn't change the answer, whether he asked today or five years from now.

Hermione looked up into Harry's face, gripped the goblin medallion tighter in her hand, and said lowly, "You better not die on me, Harry. I won't be your widow before I've even married you."

Harry's expression flickered with uncertainty a moment. "Does that mean that you will marry me?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes."

Harry broke into a huge grin. It pulled at the edges of his cut and he started to bleed again, but he didn't seem to notice nor care. He bent down and scooped her up in a hug that lifted her off her feet. Hermione clutched at him tightly. She wanted to scream for sheer happiness. Instead she clenched her eyes shut so she wouldn't see the burned and broken house or the dead grass or the skeleton of the Dursleys' car. She wanted to limit her awareness to only Harry.

"I shouldn't be this happy," Harry muttered into her hair, as though musing aloud to himself at an unexplainable phenomenon. Hermione ached because she knew he was sincere… he couldn't think himself deserving of normal happiness. Or maybe he meant he shouldn't experience anything good so soon and so near to the tragedy of his cousin's death. The death of the cousin who had tormented him and hated him and certainly never loved him. No more than Harry's aunt and uncle ever cared about him. Hermione wanted to feel sorry for them, but she just couldn't. Her heart wasn't that big, there wasn't room for her to find any compassion for people who had treated the person she loved so horribly. The love she felt for Harry was too much, it pressed at the confines of her heart, leaving no space for the Dursleys.

In silent response to his doubts, Hermione raked the fingers of her free hand through his black hair. She tried to imagine doing it for the rest of her life. She liked that notion very much. Voldemort had to die, because Hermione wasn't about to give up her future, this wondrous future with Harry.

Finally, Harry put her down and Hermione stepped back to look up at his face. He was flushed, his mouth was bleeding, but he looked completely different from the young man who'd fled his aunt and uncle's house less than an hour ago. She contemplated the fact that she was looking at her future husband and it astounded her even as it made her giddy.

How long would it take her to get used to going by Hermione Potter, she wondered? There would be time enough to find out. There _would_ be… Hermione wouldn't stand for Voldemort or his followers to deny her that.

"I expect I'll need to activate this," Hermione said with a look down at the gold medallion, their personal engagement promise.

Harry nodded. "Just your magical imprint will 'sign the deed', to use a muggle term."

Hermione nodded and put it in her pocket. It would have to wait until they were back at Hogwarts and she could use magic. When she looked up she turned to glance at her parents, grandmother, and Dumbledore. They were all waiting. Much as she loathed to end this moment, she didn't want to linger at this house any longer than necessary, either. It was well past time that Harry left this part of his life behind forever.

"It's time to go," she said gently to Harry.

Harry sighed, much of the glee in his face chased away by the reality waiting beyond the two of them, but he gave a confident nod and took her hand. Together, they started back across the yard to where their friends and family waited.

As they drew near them, Hermione could see the looks on her parents' and grandmother's faces. It was all too knowing. Hermione could only imagine what her and Harry's exchange had looked like from a distance. They would have seen it in muggle terms, and for once it would have been as equally accurate as the wizard interpretation, if not quite precise in the finer details. And the best part was the fact that the expressions on her family's faces were accepting and maybe, outside of this terrible place and the terrible things that had happened here, they might have been happy. Miranda was smiling, eyes moist but not releasing tears. Jake was looking at Harry with something undeniably approving in his face. Berti's eyes were bright without a trace of flippancy or displeasure as she looked back and forth between the two. For their voiceless approval, for their acceptance of Harry even in this testing hour, she could never thank them enough, nor love them enough.

When they had rejoined the group Harry looked to Dumbledore. "My aunt and uncle made it pretty clear they don't want us here anymore. I think we should leave them be."

Dumbledore nodded.

Harry dug into the pocket of his jeans with his free hand and came out with a tiny version of a physician's type bag. Harry held it out toward Dumbledore. "Would you mind, sir?"

"Not at all." Dumbledore waved his wand and the bag returned to its normal proportions, bulging at the sides and suddenly much heavier than it had been before. Harry had to let go of Hermione's hand to heft the leather bag with both hands. He carried it to Jake and handed it to him. "Here. This is to make sure you and Miranda and Berti can hole up somewhere safe."

Jake opened the bag while Miranda leaned in to have a look. When they saw the contents they both gaped. The bag was full of money. It was well enough money to support all of them comfortably for at least a year without any of them working a single day.

"_Harry_! This is too much. We can't take this," Miranda protested at once.

"Please, just take it. I can't stand the thought of any of you getting hurt because of me. And if it takes more than that," he gestured at the bag in Jake's hand, "to make sure you're all safe, I'll pay it. Twice over, if need be."

"Son…" Jake started to say with a faint shake of his head, but Harry interrupted him. "Don't worry about the _money_. That's not even a quarter of my inheritance, you won't break me, and it's just money. It's never been more than a reminder to me. I don't care about money, but I care about you three not being in danger, or ending up like Dudley, just for being important to me."

"We'll take this for now," Jake said solemnly, "on the understanding that you have to take back whatever we return to you when this is all over."

Harry sighed but relented, for it meant the Grangers would be taking it. It would be there if they needed it.

"Where are we to go?" Miranda asked, naturally turning to look at Dumbledore.

"Harry and Hermione, of course, will be going back to Hogwarts with me. I've made arrangements for the three of you. The less we involve ministry workers in this endeavor the better. You'll floo from Tomlin's house, that's the wizard we met earlier today when we flooed to Surrey, to Remus Lupin's. He'll be expecting you." Dumbledore glanced at Hermione meaningfully. "I take it you trust Remus to adequately see to the safety of your family?"

Hermione conferred silently with Harry then nodded.

"Do you really think we can up and disappear like this? What about all our obligations and commitments? What about Jake and Miranda's dental practice? What about my husband's horse?" Berti asked.

"I will see to it that everything is tended to. We can place substitute dentists, witches and wizards, of course, in the Grangers' place of business to maintain their clientele until they're in a position to return to work. And your husband's horse will be similarly cared for in your absence, have no fear on that count, Missus Richardson." Dumbledore regarded the state of their surroundings in thought. "We should be going now, I should think."

Hermione squeezed Harry's hand but said nothing as they fell in behind Dumbledore for the return trek.

The walk back to Tomlin's house was quiet. Everyone was caught up in their own thoughts, their own fears, their own speculations about what the future would hold. The wizard who owned the house with the nearest floo was not home when they got there, but the door opened for Dumbledore and he took them inside just the same. At the fireplace he reached into an urn placed on the mantel, threw the handful of powder into the flames, and focused intently on the sudden surge of green fire. Then he turned to those congregated behind him. He directed his next words to Jake, Miranda, and Berti specifically. "This will take you straight to Remus Lupin's residence. As I said, he's expecting you and he'll make sure you get to where you're going without running into any trouble. He's an old student of mine and a good friend of Harry's. There are no questions as to his loyalty. I've no doubt you'll find him quite agreeable."

Then it was time for goodbyes. Miranda folded Hermione up in a hug first, then placed a kiss on her forehead and smoothed her hands over the young woman's hair.

"Be careful, Mum," Hermione said thickly.

"_You_ be careful," Miranda returned, and then she reached over to embrace Harry, "both of you."

Harry hugged Miranda back tightly. "We will be." While Miranda kissed Harry on the forehead Hermione was hugging her father. With a parting brush at his hair with her hand, Miranda sent Harry to bid farewell to Jake. Hermione was just saying her goodbyes to Berti.

The two men hugged briefly, just long enough for Jake to say, "Look after my daughter, Harry."

"I promise." With every fiber of his being, he promised.

When Harry was faced with Berti he frowned. "Gram… I'm so sorry to drag you into this…"

Berti pulled him into a hug to which Harry quickly relented, because there was never any arguing with Berti. "Don't be silly, dear, family doesn't turn its back on their own. And you'll just have to accept that that unfortunate, unsavory couple back there was _not_ your family. Not anymore."

At that moment, Harry would have been hard-pressed to remember why he didn't used to like Hermione's grandmother much. He loved her now, much in the way he loved Miranda and Jake.

When all their goodbyes were said, Dumbledore gestured meaningfully at the dancing green fire. Jake picked up the bag of money off the floor and approached the flames first. He hesitated. "I don't know how you magical lot get used to this," he muttered.

"You don't," Harry said, with a hint of humor, from his place at Hermione's side. "I hate flooing."

Jake laughed. "Ha! Well, like an adhesive bandage I suppose," and with that he hunkered down as though heading into a stiff wind and rushed into the fireplace. The fire belched and flared and then Jake was gone.

Miranda went next.

When it was Berti's turn Dumbledore stepped forward, "Would you rather I accompany you, madam?"

Berti waved him off from helping her and instead turned to gesture toward Harry and Hermione pointedly. "I want _you_ to keep these two safe and sound or you'll answer to me, wizard or no."

Dumbledore smiled. "You've sufficiently intimidated me; I'd be terrified to do anything less than what you command."

Berti grunted and eyed Dumbledore critically. "Might be you wizards aren't a bad lot, if the two I've met are any indication." Then, with an admirable aplomb for a woman so completely out of her comfort zone, she marched into the fire and disappeared. The fire flickered and changed back to orange and yellow.

Harry's shoulders sagged once the Grangers were gone, as though some part of his courage had gone through the fire with them. Hermione took his hand and leaned into his side to offer him her support.

Dumbledore repeated the process of activating the floo and when all was ready he turned to his two students. Without needing to be prodded, they both approached the emerald flames. Within a matter of minutes, Tomlin's house was empty and the fire sputtering in normal colors.


	53. Chapter 53

The floo from Tomlin's house spit them out in Headmaster Dumbledore's office. Fawkes gave a squawk at their arrival and a few of the portraits craned to see who had come through the fireplace, but otherwise the room was calm and quiet. It was a stark contrast to the scene they'd found at the Dursleys'.

After brushing off his robes, Dumbledore turned to the two teenagers. They were standing uncertainly, side by side. Dumbledore's eyes lingered longer on Harry than they did on Hermione. "I think you would be well served to go to the hospital wing and have that cut on your lip tended, Harry. I'm not as adept at the healing arts as Madam Pomfrey."

Harry touched the tip of his tongue to the open wound and gave a weary nod. "All right."

"Come on, Harry," Hermione whispered softly and tugged Harry toward the door. Harry let himself be led. When it was Hermione taking him by the hand, it was easy.

They didn't see anyone in the hallways on their trek to the hospital wing, and when they pushed open the doors to the school infirmary Madam Pomfrey seemed to startle at having visitors. She turned and saw Harry's face. "Well, for Merlin's sake, Mister Potter, one would think you could manage to keep out of my care while you're not even at school. Come on, over here." The mediwitch beckoned him toward a bed so she might examine him. Hermione followed, staying close.

Pomfrey squinted at Harry's split lip once Harry had taken a seat on the bed and she tisked. "Nasty bit of work. Stay there and don't touch it." She left her patient's bedside to fetch a bottle of viscous green potion, which she proceeded to dab on Harry's cut.

"That stings," Harry hissed.

"Mmm hmm," Pomfrey merely hummed back in her usual officious manner. Then her demeanor softened visibly. "I heard about your cousin. I'm sorry."

It was doubtful that she knew how many split lips dear old Dudley had given Harry through the years before he had a mediwitch to patch him up, but that was neither here nor there as far as Harry was concerned. It still served to bring back the vivid memories of the Dursleys' house blown full of holes and bearing burn marks from cast spells.

Harry frowned and sat still the rest of the visit. He didn't want to chance any conversation that might cause Pomfrey to bring up Dudley again.

When Madam Pomfrey discharged Harry, injury cleaned, set to healing, and generously smeared with medical potion, he surrendered to Hermione's guidance and compliantly followed her, trusting in her to take him somewhere safe where he could let down the remainder of his splintered guard.

Hermione led them to Gryffindor tower.

There was no one in the common room when they stepped through the portrait hole. The fireplace was out and cold, but upon their entrance a flame leapt to life on the logs and quicker than any muggle fireplace would take to fire it was soon burning steadily, inviting and warm. It clearly appeared to warm only them.

"Did anyone stay over at Hogwarts for Christmas?" Harry wondered aloud at the deserted common room.

"I'm sure some did. I imagine they must be outside playing in the snow."

It sounded obscene to think of games in the snow when they'd just been at the scene of a murder. It didn't fit the frame. Harry gave up trying to sort it out.

Hermione dropped his hand for the first time since leaving the hospital wing to dig into her jacket pockets and withdraw her shrunken luggage. "Go ahead and get settled in and I'll meet you back here."

Harry nodded and trudged up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. The five beds were all equally untouched, no hint of errant socks or hastily shed pajamas on the floor. Harry took a fair guess that none of his roommates were at Hogwarts over the Christmas holiday. It was both a relief and a let-down. He didn't particularly want Seamus cracking lewd jokes or Dean fretting over the state of the common space, but so many empty beds arrayed around him made it seem eerily like the rightful occupants were deceased. And it would imply heavy losses for all the other boys to be dead.

Harry concluded he was thinking too much about death.

He crossed to his bed and took his own luggage from his pockets. He took out his wand to reinstate their normal sizes, then he began to shove things back into some semblance of their proper place. He noticed his clothes smelled like smoke, and he paused in his straightening up task to change into clean clothes. He kicked his ash-scented items aside and resumed his efforts to put away his luggage. It struck him as he haphazardly put away his belongings that the entirety of his worldly possessions were in this room. Whatever he might have left at the Dursleys' he would not go back for. They'd probably burn anything he left behind for the satisfaction of searing him from their lives before he would have had a chance to go back, anyway. All he saw before him was the whole of what he could call his own. It was a pithy amount of things to show for a life.

That thought exhausted him and he stopped his unpacking to sit down heavily on his bed. He was motionless for a time, mind a void, too inundated to feel anything concrete, then he happened to glance up at his nightstand. Some of the gloominess in him melted away when he laid eyes upon the framed wizard picture of him and Hermione at the Yule Ball last year. He still had that. He had his parents' photo album in his trunk, safe and undamaged. He had his father's invisibility cloak, he had his Firebolt. He had everything that was of real value to him, everything important.

And Hermione was waiting for him downstairs, or would be shortly if she wasn't already. Harry breathed in and sat up straighter at the thought. He wouldn't spare another thought for anything he may have lost; he still had the most precious thing in the world to him.

He wanted to be with her again, the compulsion rose in him and he didn't bother fighting it. Leaving his unpacking half-done, Harry rose from his bed and left the dorm room. He breathed a sigh of relief, of reprieve, to find Hermione sitting cross-legged on the couch waiting for him. She, too, had changed into different jeans and a clean shirt. Maybe she'd smelled the aftershave of death on her clothes, too.

Hermione turned to look at him when he came downstairs and she smiled, kind and offering so much peace to his troubled mind.

Harry crossed the room and joined her on the couch, all but falling back on the cushions next to her. Hermione at once curled into his side and it made things quite a bit better.

"Are any of your roommates here for the Christmas holiday?" she asked.

Harry, his head thrown back and resting on the back of the couch, rolled his head from side to side in a shake. "No. Yours?"

"I think Lavender might be here, I saw her robe out, but it looks like everyone else is gone. Is it always this empty at Christmas?"

Of course, Harry had spent Christmas at the school before. He could tell her.

"Pretty much. No one would be here if they have somewhere to go."

Hermione silently mulled that over a moment then rested her head on his shoulder. She snuggled into his side like Crookshanks settling in for a nap in a window sill. "For a while, it was a perfect Christmas."

Harry lifted his head to lay his check against the top of her head. He looped his arm around her back and held her closer… for her sake and for his. "Yeah, it was." For a while, it had been the most amazing Christmas of his entire life.

Just then, Hermione pulled away from Harry's hold. Harry let her go, faintly disappointed, and watched to see what had made her move. Hermione sat up, reached over to the couch space behind her, and retrieved the Gringotts box with the medallion inside. She must have brought it back down with her when she came back to the common room after unpacking her things. She opened the box and pulled out the medallion, the chain dangling from her hand as she palmed the gold disk. She set aside the box and used her newly freed hand to draw her wand. She concentrated, gave her wand a swish over the medallion, whispered, "_identum,_" and tapped the precious metal with the tip of her wand. There was a momentary golden glow that etched yellow light into the markings of the goblin script, then the medallion returned to looking as it always had. Except now a _fidelus_ charm would reveal that it was active. Hermione could walk into Gringotts tomorrow without him and she could access the Potter family vault as easily as he did.

Harry watched Hermione intently with a tightness in his chest and a lump in his throat.

Hermione put away her wand, then proceeded to affix the medallion around her neck. It came to rest between her breasts, a golden vow given on a black day. Hermione traced her fingers over the finely-etched lettering of the goblin language, then she glanced up at Harry through her eyelashes. "We'll have more Christmases, Harry. Perfect ones."

Harry hoped she was right. He reached out a hand and touched the medallion lightly, as reverently as he might touch her body beyond the gold and cloth. Hermione smiled and tucked the medallion into her clothes and against her skin.

"Are you hungry?" Hermione asked. "It's probably close to dinnertime."

"Not really."

Hermione studied him with a worried crinkle on her brow. "You haven't eaten all day."

"Neither have you. Are you hungry?"

Hermione paused to consider his question then she looked bemused by the answer. "Not really." Hermione pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at Harry, then sighed. "All right, then I won't pester you to eat, but you really should get some sleep, Harry. I _know_ you haven't slept since the night before last."

That idea actually sounded tempting. He was exhausted, and there was an appeal to the promise of ending this day. But he didn't want to part from her. She was the only thing that seemed to offer him any comfort; she alone kept this day from being yet another ugly scar in his life. He didn't want to go back to that depressingly empty dorm room without her.

"Will you come to bed with me?" he asked as he looked hopefully at her.

Hermione blinked once, and that was all the time it took for her to make up her mind. With a small smile, she grabbed his hand, stood, and pulled him after her. Harry went without hesitation.

Hermione led him up the stairs to the boys' dorm and opened the door to the empty room. At Harry's bed she let go of his hand and started to rifle through his unlatched trunk. Harry didn't ask what she was looking for and neither did he protest her search; he didn't mind her pawing through his things. He ducked in past her shoulder to snatch a set of pajamas when Hermione dug past them and he moved out of the way to the far end of his bed. There he proceeded to change for bed, his back considerately turned to Hermione, while she continued to search through his possessions.

When Harry turned back around, dressed for bed, he paused when he saw Hermione standing on the other side of his bed wearing his Quidditch shirt. It was a size too large and went down to nearly mid-thigh on her, but that still left plenty about the sight of her for Harry to appreciate. She'd shucked her pants while he'd been turned away and his brain hitched a fraction of a second on her slim, naked legs. She looked positively irresistible in the maroon and gold shirt, and it stirred wild things in him to know that, right then, she had 'POTTER' emblazoned across her back.

Hermione gave a bashful smile and plucked at the sleeve. "Is it all right if I borrow this?"

"It's all right if you _keep_ that," Harry answered on reflex.

Hermione chuckled. "Careful or I'll be apt to take you up on that." Hermione turned down the comforter on Harry's bed and crawled in. She nestled down, got comfortable, and looked up at him where he continued to stand watching her. "Come to bed, Harry," she beckoned in an angel-sweet voice.

Dumbly, Harry crawled in with her. He'd barely had a chance to get situated when Hermione curled against his side and wrapped up in him, her arm around his waist, one leg tangled with his, her head on his shoulder. When she pressed against him, he could tell that she wasn't wearing a bra… but she was wearing the medallion. Harry let his eyes drift shut, the nearest to perfectly content that he could ever imagine being.

For whatever mental reason, Hermione thought he was worth marrying. If he didn't screw up, he could have this every night for the rest of his life.

He'd move the earth to have that, so it seemed, for a moment, a small thing to kill just one wizard.

Just one wizard for Hermione in his bed, draped over him and sighing into his shoulder, for years and years to come. Just one wizard…

In a matter of minutes, Harry was asleep, with Hermione not far behind.

* * *

She was sunning on the savannah, the sun soaking wonderfully into her bones, heating her blood, gilding her mane and setting the horizon to dancing. She was lying in the grass, tawny as her coat. She could smell the sweet scent of the earth, the tree over her shoulder, the gazelles in the distance. They lived by her clemency. Her power was sure, uncontested, a part of her every cell. She could not be anything but a weapon even at rest, dangerous even in repose.

She was a queen of the grasslands. And she was not alone.

She looked over her shoulder, into the squat tree, where her blue-eyed panther stretched across the lowest limb. He turned his head to her. Hers, that black master of the jungle. But he was in her realm now.

She stood and went to him. The branch he'd chosen for a resting place was low… she might not be the climber he was, but she could reach him easily enough. He watched her, interested and alert, as she jumped up to join him. His gaze was intense, his presence intoxicating.

She sat wedged in the crotch of the tree, she laid down like he did, straddling the branch. She crowded his back end; he didn't move to give her more room. She didn't want him to. She rested her head on his haunches and thrilled in having him all around her.

His body was warm beneath her… not as warm as the sun but just as hot to her blood. His scent was thick, right there, suffusing her. She did so covet his smell. He was living and solid and glorious under her.

"I can't figure how they got away with this," a familiar male voice carried to her ears, distant but growing clearer.

"They're so cute together." A female. Familiar, too. Growing even more familiar by the second. Hermione wanted to tune them out, but consciousness was creeping back to her in their exchange.

"We should do something about this, don't you think?"

"If you wake them, Ron, I swear you'll be hexed cross-eyed for a week."

"Didn't I tell you to stop spending time with that wanker? He's a real rotten influence on you."

"Seamus is not a wanker. Keep your voice down."

Hermione knew them now. Ron and Ginny. They were in the room, somewhere nearby. They were trying to be quiet, but 'quiet' and 'Weasley' had never been concepts on friendly terms.

While they bickered, Hermione became aware of her physical surroundings. She was in bed, though technically half of her mattress was Harry. He was lying on his stomach and she was very nearly lying right on top of him. She had pillowed her head between his shoulder blades, her torso favoring him to bear her weight more than the bed itself. Her right arm was thrown over the far side of his body in a veritable sprawl. She was rising and falling gently with Harry's breathing. Hermione had never had a better pillow. The thin material of Harry's pajama shirt allowed her to feel his body heat on every inch that they touched; it allowed her to smell him where he lay just beneath her nose.

It was such a great way to wake up that for a while she didn't recall why they were in a Hogwarts bed where Ron and Ginny could argue over them when they should have been at Berti's, or at least her parents'.

"Honestly, Ginny, we ought to… I mean, look! Her hair's all over his face. You know that's got to be driving him mad."

"Yeah, he looks really put out," Ginny retorted sarcastically.

"Well, all right, I'll give you he doesn't much look like a bloke who had his cousin killed yesterday."

Hermione's happy morning came crashing down. She remembered yesterday in a rush. Dudley Dursley being murdered by Death Eaters, the interruption of their perfect Christmas morning by Dumbledore bringing them the news, her parents and grandmother going into hiding. Without thinking, she curled the loose arm she had draped over Harry to hug him barely to her like a child might clutch a teddy bear.

"Awww," Ginny cooed.

"Gack. And she nicked his Quidditch shirt, too. That's just not right."

"And you're about as romantic as a kidney pie fart in the middle of a candle-lit dinner. Let's go down to the common room."

"And just leave them like this?"

"I swear, Ron, if you wake them, I'll—"

Hermione opened her eyes at last and looked over at her friends. They were both wearing new knit sweaters with the first letter of their names on the front (rather to say Ginny's had a 'G' on the front; Ron was standing slightly offset so Hermione couldn't see the front of his, but she'd bet anything that Ron's had a matching 'R'). Ginny was standing in a position to see Hermione first, and she never finished whatever threat she'd intended to make to her brother when she saw Hermione's eyes open. When Ron turned his head to see what had tripped his sister Hermione whispered, "If you wake Harry I'll hex you bald."

"Hermione…" Ron turned fully to address Hermione, though he looked distinctly uncomfortable as she continued to lie sprawled over Harry's sleeping form. "Uh… we heard—"

Hermione gingerly moved to get off the bed without waking Harry. "Tell me in the common room what you heard, I don't want to wake Harry."

"Ron woke Harry," Harry mumbled against the mattress.

Ginny snorted. Hermione froze and shifted against Harry's back to peer at his face. Harry peeked open an eye and gave a weak first-thing-in-the-morning smile.

"How long have you been awake?" Hermione asked.

"Long enough to assure Ron that I gave you that shirt."

Ron made a strangled, scandalized noise at that. "Mate, if you were awake then why didn't you bloody say something?"

"Because I didn't want Hermione to get up off me just yet," Harry answered plainly.

"Oh, that's so sweet," Ginny said.

"That's really more than I wanted to know. So, uh, you two want to get up out of bed now, or you want to just meet up later and talk about… uh… everything?"

Harry grunted. "_That_ depends on Hermione." He shifted up slightly on to his side to look toward her. "You getting up?"

Hermione fought a smile. "Much as I'd like to have a lie in with my own personal Harry Potter pillow, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff for all of us to cover to catch everyone up on all the news. Probably best we get a start on it."

Harry grumbled under his breath. "All right, if you insist. Want to just meet in the common room in ten minutes?"

Hermione nodded and reluctantly climbed out of bed. Ginny leapt forward when Hermione started toward the door. "I'll go with you, keep you company while you get dressed. We can squeeze in a spot of girl talk."

"Oh, sweet Merlin, take cover," Ron groaned. As Hermione and Ginny were traipsing out of the boys' dorm room Ron yelped. "Oiy! Hermione! Harry, she left her bra on our floor!"

Hermione just managed not to laugh at Ron as she descended the stairs. She didn't bother to go back and fetch her clothes; she could get them later, and it would do Ron good to fidget a bit. It wasn't as though any of the other boys that shared that room were there to be affronted by her delicates. Ginny positively squealed and hurried closely after Hermione.

Lavender was already awake and about to head down to breakfast when Hermione and Ginny nearly bumped into her at the door.

"Oh hi, Hermione, Ginny, I didn't know you two were…" then Lavender's eyes bulged when she realized Hermione looked to be wearing nothing more than Harry Potter's Quidditch shirt.

"Good morning, Lavender," Hermione said politely, making no matter of her attire, and stepped around the other Gryffindor girl. Lavender stood there another moment gawking then scurried down the stairs. Hermione did not doubt it would be to set rumors to flying, but she and Harry were very good at disregarding rumors, the true ones just as well as the false.

Ginny closed the girls' dorm room door the moment they were alone and whirled to Hermione. "Ooo! You two _did it_, didn't you?"

"What? No. Ginny, we just _slept_."

Ginny bounded over to Parvati's neatly made, unused bed and sat down, cross-legged and bobbing energetically. "Please, Mione, I'm not your mum, you don't have to give me that story."

"It's not a story. And don't call me 'Mione'."

Ginny grinned cloyingly. "You let Harry call you that."

Hermione went to her trunk and started to search for some clothes to wear. She noted that her empty bed had not gone to waste last night. Crookshanks was still curled primly in the middle, like a prince upon a throne pillow. "Harry's my…" Hermione cut herself short. She very nearly said 'fiancé'. "…boyfriend. He can get away with things you can't."

"Oh, I'll bet. So what did he 'get away with' last night?"

Hermione slipped on a pair of pants and rolled her eyes. "_Honestly_, Ginny, we slept, that's it. Harry didn't sleep at all the night before and it had been a really long, difficult day and he just didn't want to be alone. We were both out like a light in about five minutes flat."

Ginny pouted. "That's it? Damn. I was going to ask you how was it? I've heard that it hurts the first time."

Hermione trained her expression very carefully to betray nothing at that remark, but something obviously slipped, because Ginny's eyes went wide as saucers and she made a high-pitched noise that sent Crookshanks running.

"_Merlin_! You two _did_ do it!!"

Hermione grabbed up a bra and shirt and hastily turned away from Ginny to don both… and to try and conceal the furious blush that suffused her face. Unfortunately, Ginny was too damn observant for Hermione's good. It would seem Ginny got all the powers of observation that should have gone to Ron, on top of her own.

"_Come on_, Hermione! Tell! Was it while you were at your parents' for Christmas holiday? Was he good? You know, he'd have to be bloody fantastic to keep up with his whole Boy Who Lived reputation. How big is he? Seamus likes to boast about how impressive he is, but I have to wonder if it's not the quiet types really toting the _big_ wands; what is that muggle phrase, the one that puts Dad in fits of laughter, 'talk quietly but carry a big stick' or something like that—"

Hermione had quickly put on her bra and top while Ginny prattled on, the Gringotts medallion ending up on the outside of her clothes at the end of the process. Hermione spun back around to face Ginny before she had the presence of mind to tuck it back inside her clothes. "Will you keep your voice down? A bit louder and Ron might hear you."

Ginny snapped her mouth shut at once and sat there mute, duly chastised, then she nodded and continued in a much lower pitch. "I'm sorry. But _come on_, Hermione, you're killing me here. I'm dying to know everything."

Hermione wavered and chewed on her bottom lip. She'd missed out on 'girl talk' for most of her life because at first she was never pretty or popular enough to be included with the other girls at school, and then she went and made her two best friends guys. She considered Ginny closely and felt she might be able to trust her. "You have to _swear_ you won't tell _anyone_."

"I swear. Put a spell on me if you think I'll tell anyone; make it a real nasty one so that if I tell anybody I'll turn into a slug or, worse yet, a _Slytherin_."

Hermione was tempted, but the fact Ginny was entirely sincere and willing to have a spell cast on her was good enough for the time being. Hermione went over to sit on Parvati's bed next to Ginny. Then she had absolutely no idea what to say. She folded her hands in her lap and studied her fingers nervously. "I don't know where to start."

Ginny's enthusiasm was thankfully tailored to match the shift in the conversation's tone. "So you and Harry did shag?"

Hermione nodded.

"Is it true that it… you know… hurts the first time?"

Hermione nodded again.

"How bad?"

Hermione considered her memories of the experience a moment. "It feels more like a burning sensation. There's a sharp pain when he first…" she made a suggestive hand gesture so she wouldn't have to say it, "then burning. But it gets so caught up in everything else that you stop paying attention to it."

"Does it really not hurt the times after that?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know, Harry and I only did it the once."

"When?"

"Right after the Triwizard Tournament."

Ginny's jaw dropped. "_Really_?! I had no idea you guys got together that long ago. I figured it was just during the summer."

"We weren't together, it was… a really weird situation." Hermione sighed and frowned as she tried to put it to words. "That night when he came back from the third task I couldn't bear not knowing that he was still okay, so I snuck over to the boys' dorm room and climbed into bed with Harry. I didn't expect anything to happen, I just wanted to be with him, then he started kissing me and… well…" Hermione made an 'ergo' gesture and blushed slightly.

"But you two didn't get together then?"

Hermione shook her head.

Ginny seemed to find a huge flaw in that sequence of events, but she didn't point it out. "Other than the… burning… how was it?"

"Good, I guess. Intense. 'Overload' probably best pegs it. Maybe next time," she felt her face get hot, "it'll be better. That first time it was more just the fact that it was _Harry_." Hermione quickly amended, "But it wasn't _bad_, and I don't regret it."

"I didn't think you did." Ginny suddenly smiled.

"What?" Hermione asked warily.

Ginny shook her head. "Nothing."

"It's not nothing, I know that smile. What?"

Ginny winced. "Don't take this as any kind of insult, because it's _not_, but I was just thinking that most of the students here at Hogwarts would probably name you as the girl most likely not to lose your virginity until you were thirty… but here you've actually lost it earlier than just about all of us."

"Only because it was Harry," Hermione stated.

Ginny nodded in immediate agreement, then that sly, mischievous smile was back. "So I guess that leaves one question… what are the measurements on the 'wand' of the famous Boy Who Lived?"

Hermione had to be absolutely scarlet. "Well, since his is the only 'wand' I've ever seen I'm not really fit to judge. _I_ think it's… uh… impressive enough." Hermione felt like her skin was on fire from the chest up. "Besides, would you really be able to sit across the breakfast table from him and act totally normal if I told you he was hung like a horse?"

Ginny broke into roaring laughter. When she could breathe again she wiped tears from her eyes and gasped, "No… you're right… I probably don't want to know."

Hermione chuckled. "Come on, the boys are probably wondering what's keeping us."

Hermione and Ginny stood and moved toward the door. Ginny opened the door and held it for Hermione to go through first… but Hermione never got a chance. Ginny suddenly slammed the door shut again and stepped up close to Hermione, invading her personal space without so much as a word of explanation. Hermione drew back when Ginny seemed to reach up toward her throat. Just shy of Hermione's throat Ginny's hand stopped and Hermione looked down and realized Ginny had taken the medallion between her fingers and was studying it closely.

There was no doubt, from the look on her face, that Ginny knew exactly what it was. She tore her eyes from the medallion to look at Hermione. "Did Harry give you this?"

"Yes. It was a Christmas present."

Ginny deliberately put it back against Hermione's shirt and pondered it there a moment longer. "Did Harry have any idea what it implied in Gringott law?"

Hermione smirked. Seemed she was not the only one to notice that Harry could be a bit clueless when it came to the wizarding world. "I asked him the same thing… and yes, he did."

Ginny looked floored. "Did he _mean_ that, though?"

Hermione fought off a full-blown smile and said in an even voice, "Since he actually proposed after I questioned him about the medallion, yes, I imagine he did mean it."

Ginny's mouth dropped open. Hermione stood and watched and waited for it to click. When it did, Ginny grinned and leapt at Hermione, wrapping her in a bear hug. "Oh, wow! I can't believe… I'm so happy for you! Merlin's beard! You and Harry. _Congratulations_!"

"Thank you."

Ginny broke away from Hermione and collected herself. When she was more presentable (that was to say, not a veritable beacon flashing 'I've been hearing naughty secrets, ask me all about it'), she cocked her head at Hermione.

Hermione's brow knit in silent query.

"You've really got one of the good ones, you know. Harry's a great guy and I know he'll always be good to you."

Hermione smiled gently. "I know," she breathed as she slipped the medallion inside her shirt.

Ginny gave her another genuine smile and opened the door.

When the two girls reached the common room Harry and Ron were waiting… Ron impatiently. "What took so bloody long?" he rounded irately when he caught sight of them.

"I was just telling Hermione _all_ about Seamus," Ginny replied airily.

Ron's ears reddened. "That bloody git, well knock it off because I don't want to hear one word of it."

Hermione sent Ginny a grateful look then she let her eyes find Harry. He was watching her, a smile behind his eyes, and Hermione wanted to throw her arms wide on the roof of the astronomy tower and scream. Right then, she felt like she could leap from the tower and never hit the ground. This joy in her chest would give her wings to fly.

All his faults and scars and issues included, she really did have one of the good ones.


	54. Chapter 54

A/N: Just an odd aside here, a thought I've been pondering in off moments during the day… think there's any chance I've managed to sway even one Ron/Hermione fan over to Harry/Hermione? Even perhaps just a slim chance? Or is that reaching too high, overextending myself as it were? Quite possibly. Just something I've puzzled over. Now on to the chapter.

* * *

The Great Hall was scantly populated with fellow students tucking into breakfast, no more than as many might be found using the Great Hall as a study hall during exams, but it was more people than Hermione and Harry had seen in the castle since their return yesterday evening. It was a bit refreshing to see other people; Hogwarts took on the aura of horribly tomb-like and glum when it was empty. No one was wearing their school robes, though a few of the pure-blood young wizards and witches wore other fashions of robes, what no doubt constituted regular attire in their homes.

The Gryffindor table was sufficiently bare that Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were able to find a place well away from anyone else so they might talk. While they filled their plates Hermione was the first to ask their redheaded comrades, "What are you two doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you still be at the Burrow with your family celebrating?"

Ron nodded and spoke around a mouthful of food, "Wu wure." He stopped to forcefully swallow his food and resumed, his eyes shifting to Harry in the process, "When your aunt and uncle's house was attacked some folks at the ministry contacted Dad. Plenty of people he works with at the ministry know you're close to our family so they were good enough to floo us as soon as they knew it was something to do with you."

Harry was eating heartily during the telling but he paused to nod for Ron to continue.

But it was Ginny who spoke next. "Mum was going spare. I don't know why, she knew you weren't at the Dursleys' for Christmas, we'd told her you'd gone off with Hermione, but she sent Dad right off to the ministry to keep his finger on things. Our whole Christmas day was Dad popping in and out giving us the latest reports on what was going on."

Harry frowned at that. Hermione could practically hear him thinking that he'd ruined two family Christmases, even if it was through absolutely no fault of his own. She didn't care for his feeling guilty for something Voldemort did (when Harry could have done nothing to prevent it), but she didn't think a lecture on his tendency to shoulder blame was appropriate at the moment. Instead, she asked Ginny, "Does the ministry know anything more about the attack? When we were at Privet Drive the Aurors on the scene didn't seem to have any real leads on finding the Death Eaters that did it."

Ron's eyes widened and his fork froze halfway to his mouth. "You two actually _went_ there? You saw the house and everything?"

Harry nodded as he set down his glass of pumpkin juice. "Yeah… it was pretty bad."

Hermione winced. He wasn't merely talking about the state of the house. She touched his arm supportively and did all she could to draw the attention back to her. "Dumbledore showed up at my grandmother's on Christmas morning and told us about the attack. Harry insisted that he go see his aunt and uncle before coming back to Hogwarts."

Ron grimaced. "Ow. I can't imagine that went well."

Harry shook his head. "I've finally been disowned."

"Oh… I'm sorry, Harry," Ginny said.

"It's not that big a deal; they've wanted me out of their lives permanently from the day I was left on their doorstep. Ironically, it would have been better for them if they had gotten rid of me. Would have saved them and me loads of grief. And Dudley would still be alive." Harry stared down at his plate.

Ginny narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at Harry. "Did you get that cut on your lip getting disowned?"

Harry touched his fingers to the healing wound (almost completely healed now thanks to Madam Pomfrey's expert tending) at the mention of it, and he made a queer face. He didn't relish discussing how the Dursleys abused him. In fact, he tacitly avoided it. "Yeah," was all he said in answer to Ginny's question. His tone stated clearly that he would not elaborate on the incident.

"Those bastards," Ron growled.

Harry sighed. "You can't really blame them for hurting me this time."

"Sure we can," Hermione said sharply.

Harry looked at her wearily. "Dudley _died_, Hermione."

Hermione's jaw set firmly as that protective fire flared within her, then she countered, "_You_ didn't kill him."

"I near as well did; Voldemort's followers went there because of me." When Harry saw Hermione about to protest his reasoning, and quite probably go into a tear, he blocked her by turning to Ron and saying quickly, "But the attack on my aunt and uncle doesn't explain what you two are doing at Hogwarts when it's still Christmas holiday."

Hermione pursed her lips as she regarded Harry closely, fully aware of his blatant diversionary tactics, then she gave in and looked toward the Weasleys.

"Oh, well, Dad found out you'd be coming back to Hogwarts, for safety and all, and me and Ginny asked to come back early and keep you two company. Dad managed to speak with Dumbledore about it so we could use his floo to get here. We got in just this morning."

"Thanks, Ron, Ginny. You didn't have to give up your Christmas because of us."

"Truthfully, we were all too happy to come back. Mum's cousin Wulgrig was spending this year with us. He gets passed around to a different person in our mum's family every year, and this year was ours. Cousin Wulgrig's a nice enough bloke, but too much like Fred and George for his own good. Twenty years ago he was pulling a prank on a friend and it backfired and he got covered in magicked permanent stink sap. He's smelled bloody awful ever since. He doesn't notice it anymore, but everyone else around him sure does. Fred and George volunteered to come back early, too, to keep you company, but Mum wasn't buying it from them."

Harry smirked crookedly and shoveled a forkful of sausage into his mouth. Hermione had been eating just as steadily while Ron and Ginny talked about their disrupted Christmas day.

Ron paused to watch Harry tucking into his breakfast with gusto to do him proud. "Really have to say it's good to see this whole nasty business with your cousin hasn't killed your appetite."

Harry swallowed and returned with an accompanying vague gesture at Hermione next to him, "Hermione and I haven't eaten since the day before yesterday."

"Oh… well, we'll not tell Mum that part. She really worries over you, you know."

"Yeah, I know, but she needn't… next time you talk to her let her know I'm all right."

Ron nodded and gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I keep telling her that you're just fine, but it does no good. I think it's that she hasn't had the opportunity to fuss over you in quite a long time that she gets bothered with thinking that you're not being properly taken care of."

Harry's expression softened a little. "Miranda more than took that responsibility upon herself, I'd say."

Hermione smiled into her plate without looking up.

"Miranda?" Ginny queried.

Harry ticked his head in Hermione's direction and gave a small, sheepish smile. "Hermione's mum." Harry paused then and his face turned stormy. "_That's_ the worst part of all of this mess."

"What's that?" Ron asked.

"Hermione's parents and her grandmother had to leave everything and go into hiding." Harry scowled at his cup. "I wasn't willing to risk them being harmed, not after what happened to Dudley, so I packed them off to Remus Lupin with a bag of money to see them somewhere safe where I _hope_ Voldemort can't find them."

Hermione looked up then and rejoined the conversation. "They went willingly, Harry, no one forced them to go, and they know you're just concerned for their well-being."

"That doesn't make it any less buggered. Your family and Ron's are the last people I would ever want to see put in danger because of me," Harry groused dourly, then he shook his head.

Ginny tapped the tongs of her fork against her plate as she thought. "They went to Lupin you said, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then I'm sure they'll end up somewhere safe."

Ron nodded agreement. "She's right there, Harry. Lupin's not about to let you down."

"I hope so," Harry mumbled.

"They will be safe with Lupin, there's no question about it," Ginny insisted, then her expression went from fiery to sad. "We really are sorry about your cousin, Harry."

Ron nodded. "Yeah… real shame, that."

"Yeah…" Harry's face screwed, "it's weird. I don't… I'm sorry that he was killed, but I'm not sad that he's dead. I'm more upset about the Grangers and Gram than about Dudley, or about Vernon and Petunia. Guess that makes me a pretty rotten person."

"Hardly. Of course you'd be more concerned about the people who love you than those mean-spirited relatives of yours. That doesn't make you a bad person." Hermione's tone brooked no argument on the subject.

"Mean-spirited or not, they didn't deserve that."

"No, but you're not _happy_ your cousin was murdered. You're just not crying over the family that made it a point to make you feel unwelcome in their home from day one. If not being torn up about that makes you a bad person, then I'm a bad person, too."

Ron held up a finger. "Here, too."

"Same here," Ginny said.

Harry looked at each of them in turn.

Hermione gave a curt nod and turned to Harry. "There… so if you're going to say you're a bad person for not shedding a tear over Dudley Dursley then you're also saying we're all bad people."

Harry broke and gave Hermione a very faint, lop-sided smile of deep appreciation. Naturally, he could never think ill of her. He wouldn't categorically deem Ron and Ginny bad people. Hermione knew all of that full well. Therefore, he had to let go the notion he was bad or face Hermione's indignant passion. Harry knew the ferocity of the lioness when it was loosed, and he had no desire to be on the business end of her claws for being a 'thick git'. It managed to work loose a knot of guilt that had lodged in his chest that was not so much for Dudley's death but the fact Harry wasn't more anguished by it. Hermione said it was perfectly normal that Harry wouldn't mourn Dudley's passing… when he knew it was okay that he wasn't sad, he felt a burden lifted from his chest. He had been smothered by the presumed responsibility that he grieve for a person he'd never loved.

For a few seconds there was only the sound of silverware on plates and cups returning to the table as the four friends ate breakfast the morning after Christmas day. It was telling that they had not breathed a word about their gifts in favor of talking about Death Eaters and murdered family members. If there was ever a sign of the times it was for four teens to converse as they did on a day like the day after Christmas.

"Oh!" Ron said suddenly, "almost forgot, we brought Hedwig back from the Burrow with us. Though I think she would have preferred to get back here on her own. Don't think she cared much for the floo."

"Can't say I blame her," Harry said, "she and I would both much rather fly to get somewhere."

"I don't understand how any of you can enjoy—" Hermione began to say, but a matronly voice broke into her statement.

"Miss Granger."

All four teenagers turned their heads to watch Professor McGonagall walking down the Great Hall toward them, a letter in her hand. She stopped before where they sat and smiled kindly at them all, then purposefully at Hermione. "Miss Granger, Headmaster Dumbledore asked me to give you this."

Hermione took the letter. "Thank you, Professor." Her expression reflected puzzlement, but then when a student got a letter it was typically delivered by owl, not by the head of one's house. Everyone else at the table noted the oddity in McGonagall playing post.

McGonagall nodded, her smile fell slightly, and she took a step further to rest her hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm so terribly sorry about your cousin, Mister Potter."

Harry nodded graciously. "Thank you, Professor."

McGonagall gave his shoulder a gentle pat and she left them to their business. Harry turned at once to Hermione. "Who's it from?"

Hermione tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter. The second her eyes took in the handwriting her entire energy shifted to razor-sharp acuity. "It's from Mum and Dad."

Harry immediately slid over to sit pressed closely to her side so he could lean in and read the letter over her shoulder. Hermione moved to hold the note farther to her left to make it easier for him to read it along with her.

_'Hermione and Harry, _

'We can't say anything about where we are, but we wanted to let you both know that the place Mr. Lupin found for us seems to be very secure. We are certain we'll be safe here, and we don't want either of you two to worry about us. Just concentrate on watching out for yourselves. We still have a family holiday to finish.

'We don't know how often we'll be able to communicate with you, but whenever possible we'll let you know that we're still safe. Please do the same.

'Until next time, all our love,

'Mum, Dad, and Gram'

Harry let out a huge sigh of relief. Hermione looked up at him, their faces so close they could have very easily kissed, and she looked to be just as relieved as he to hear from the Grangers, if not more so. With a beautiful smile gracing her features, she wrapped her arms around Harry's neck and hugged him. Harry returned the embrace with one arm around Hermione's back while another kink in that knot in his chest unraveled. The Grangers and Gram were somewhere safe, at least for now.

"What is it?" Ron asked.

Hermione and Harry broke apart and Hermione, her face relaxed and the lovelier for it after the good news, answered, "It's a note from my parents and grandmother that they've found a safe place to lie low for a while."

"Oh, good. See? Told you Lupin would come through."

Harry gave a nod. "Of course, we won't really know how safe it actually is until this is all over and nothing's happened to them, but… still, it's good to hear that they're settled and hidden." Harry had had more than his fair share of horrible scenarios running rampant in his imagination where the group was attacked en route to their safe house.

Hermione tucked the letter into her pocket, a considerable load off her mind. "What shall we do now that we're here waiting for the term to start again? I suppose we could take back up with the wandless magic."

Ron groaned. "Please, no. The quill is never going to move, Hermione. It's best that we just accept it. Not a one of us is going to learn to do wandless magic. It would have been wicked if we had, but it won't happen."

"You don't _know_ that," Hermione countered.

Ron gave her a patented 'are you completely touched in the head?' look. "We spent half of last term wasting _hours_ of our free time staring at our quills like a bunch of bloody idiots. Half the school thought we'd lost our collective marbles."

Hermione's lips pursed but just when she looked ready to launch into another classic Ron/Hermione argument she calmed down and said coolly, "All right then, what do you suggest?"

"It's the holiday. I suggest we don't do anything that might even remotely resemble any kind of work."

Hermione's mouth opened and closed soundlessly a moment as she visibly tried not to get into it with Ron, but compelled by her nature to protest his laziness and the _suggestion_ that she do the same.

Harry reached over and touched her hand. It distracted her from getting into it with Ron. When she wasn't on the cusp of a row anymore, Harry directed his words to Ron placatingly. "You know Hermione can't just do nothing. She wouldn't be Hermione if she kicked back and lazed away the day without accomplishing something."

"Tell me about it," Ron grunted, "drives me nearly mad. Just proves that she was always better suited for you than me."

Hermione's fight to keep from bickering left her in a rush at Ron's off-hand remark, and she cast Harry a soft, demure smile. Harry smiled back and withdrew his hand.

"Surely we can think of something," Ginny said.

When Hermione didn't offer up another recommendation the four returned to their morning meals, content for the time being to take things one at a time and make up their activities as they went along.


	55. Chapter 55

A/N: Wow, so much to comment on in this author's note.

First of all, I want to say a heart-felt and sincere thank you to everyone who noticed that my story had been plagiarized on and drawing it to my attention. I had emails, reviews on portkey, I read scathing reviews of the thief's post of MY first chapter on hpff, and at least half a dozen people (that I know of) reporting it as abuse… all within a matter of hours of the stolen chapter being posted. To be honest, I didn't get the chance to be truly incensed or furious about it because I was too busy being touched and amazed by the prompt reaction of my readers to safeguard my work. Thank you all so very, very much. This is what makes the online fanfic community so great.

Secondly… I have a confession to make. Many of you have made the offhand comment that you would be interested in buying any book I might publish. Well, truth time… I just took it as flattery and a compliment dressed up in a different suit. I _am_ working on an original story, but I didn't have any grand scheme to try and publish it. The fact is, I don't believe I'm good enough to be a published author. But after all your outpouring of support, I'm willing to entertain the crazy notion that _maybe_ someday I could _try_… So, if you actually want to be informed if (and that's a BIG 'if') I ever publish a book, just provide your email, either in your review or email it to me personally. I'll start keeping a list, because on the _slim_ chance I make it as a published author someday, I never want to forget the first 'fans' I had (meaning readers of all my fanfiction in all my beloved fandoms).

Now, on to the chapter.

* * *

After a fair bit of the late morning spent lobbing ideas back and forth on how they were to spend their day at Hogwarts (since anything academically productive was banned from even being discussed), the quartet ended up wandering the castle. It was the only thing they could settle on without someone being excluded.

But as it happened, just meandering through the school ended up being rather informative. They were able to do an improvised roll-call of the teachers and students who were staying over the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts. That was useful information. After everything Harry and Hermione had been through, they began to look at everything for how it could be considered useful information. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Pomfrey were already confirmed presences within the familiar walls, but after walking around the halls they were able to add Snape, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Sprout to the list of professors spending their holiday at the school. Naturally, some were more welcome sights than others, but even knowing that Snape was there could end up being useful. Most of the professors they saw were passing figures, more apt to be in their private rooms or socializing with one another if not expected to be teaching, but the four friends did spend a couple of hours at Hagrid's visiting and bringing him to speed on everything that had happened in the past few days. The enormous groundskeeper was almost apoplectic about what had happened to Harry's family and he was downright aggrieved for the Grangers having to leave their homes for their own safety, but beyond that it was nice to sit down and chat with Hagrid.

Of the other students staying the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts, their own house seemed to be scantily represented, though that small number looked to be representative of the trend in each of the houses for each of the years. Whereas last Christmas most everyone had stayed at school because of the tournament, this year's Christmas crowd was dismally small. The corridors were largely empty, but it made keeping track of whom among their same house, same year was spending the holiday at Hogwarts much easier.

Of course, Hermione's roommate Lavender was there, and her decision to stay the Christmas holiday at the school became a lot clearer when it turned out Oliver Wood was at Hogwarts, too. Ginny, who had kept her ear pressed to the rumor mill far more than the trio, did say that the pair seemed to be getting pretty serious. Serious enough for both to sacrifice Christmas with their families so they could be together. Passing the library they spotted Ravenclaw Anthony Goldstein catching up on some recreational reading, and at lunch they saw Hannah Abbot sitting with some fellow Hufflepuffs, though Hufflepuffs in the year ahead of their own. Kevin Whitly waved at them once in the hallways, possibly on his way to the bath if the bundle under his arm should prove to be a towel and robe. No one was happy to see that Draco Malfoy was also at Hogwarts for the Christmas holiday, but on the upside there was no sign of his mentally challenged henchmen Crabbe and Goyle. That would have to make the Slytherin snob more bearable.

After lunch, while Ron and Ginny were unpacking their things, Harry and Hermione went up to the owlery to visit Hedwig, who was very happy to see Harry and gave his ear an affectionate nibble. The snowy owl even gave Hermione a little nip on the finger when Hermione reached out to stroke her soft breast feathers.

A stop at Dumbledore's office yielded no further information about the Death Eaters who had attacked the Dursleys and killed Dudley, and in fact the headmaster confessed he was skeptical that anything would be found. From all indications, the Death Eaters who left the Dursley house and family in such ruins had been too mindful of themselves to leave behind anything that might allow the ministry to track them back to their lord. There was still the possibility something would turn up that had escaped notice before, but Dumbledore didn't peg too much hope on that. Needless to say, Dumbledore had not been encouraged by the continued lack of fruitful reports from the Aurors on the site of the attack. It was disheartening, but not wholly unexpected. Voldemort had evaded capture for eleven years before he was bested by a special baby, and it was fair to assume that _that_ incident had taught him a lesson or two on caution. Voldemort wasn't dangerous because he was stupid.

On their way back from Dumbledore's, Harry and Hermione met Ron and Ginny in the corridor just as the Weasleys were off to the owlery to write their mother a letter to assure her that everyone was fine and safe and that she could stop her worrying (for what good it would do). Hermione begged off a second trek to the blustery cold owl tower in favor of the library… Harry opted to go with her rather than with Ron and Ginny. They stopped over at the Gryffindor tower so Hermione could get her things and they spent easily three hours in the library. With the castle so sparsely populated they took the liberty of slightly transfiguring one of the wood-backed chairs into a wide, comfy armchair that they squeezed on to together. With Madam Pince counted among those teachers not staying over the holiday at Hogwarts there wasn't much chance they'd be caught. Hermione ended up partially on Harry's lap while she thumbed through the big cat book he'd given her for Christmas, and Harry was content to spend the rest of the evening cooped up in the library, so long as Hermione didn't want to change their seating arrangements. He even managed to learn a few things, though he discovered that he tended to remember more about the lions than, say, the tigers or cougars.

The four friends met back up at dinner, Ron and Ginny red-faced and breathless from a quick kip over to the Quidditch pitch for a bit of airborne fun and Harry and Hermione straight from the library. Ron stated in no uncertain terms that Harry was expected and ordered to join him out on the pitch some time soon, the cold be damned. He hardly had to twist Harry's arm to get him to promise to cede to his demands. All in all, things were getting back to a state of normalcy, or as normal as things could get given the circumstances.

After dinner they congregated in the Gryffindor common room. When they first got back to the room they found Oliver and Lavender sitting close together on the couch in front of the fireplace, but once the older couple had company they got up to excuse themselves and made for the portrait hole. As Lavender was passing by Hermione, Hermione caught her arm to stop her. The older girl looked curiously at Hermione as she leaned in and said softly, "Harry and I transfigured one of the library chairs this afternoon so it's really cozy and fits two nicely."

Lavender beamed. "Thanks, Hermione." Shortly, they had the common room to themselves.

Ron looked after Oliver and Lavender while Ginny disappeared, dashing up the stairs to her dorm room. "Well, why'd they up and leave like that?" Ron asked.

Hermione snorted. "Honestly, Ron, even you can't be that dense. It's obvious they wanted to be alone. And the four of us come barging in… not very romantic."

Ron's face screwed as he thought on that.

Harry led Hermione over to the now vacant couch and pulled Hermione down to sit next to him. Hermione put aside her bag on the cushion space to her right and snuggled into Harry's side, her legs tucked up so her feet were practically under her bum. Their locked hands, fingers entwined, were resting atop Harry's thigh.

Ron eyed them as he came around to the sitting area. "I see the lack of privacy doesn't stop you two."

"Well, we don't know _exactly_ what Oliver and Lavender were about to do when we busted in," Hermione countered. "Might be they had a bit more than just snuggling in mind."

Before Ron could spout a rejoinder to that Ginny came bounding down the stairs to her girls' dorm room with a letter in hand. Ron went over to the armchair beside the couch and dropped down into it. Ginny lay down on the rug on her stomach right in front of the fire and opened her letter.

"What have you got there?" Ron asked with a nod toward the note.

"It's an owl post from Seamus I got right before we came back to Hogwarts; I haven't had a chance to read it yet," Ginny answered easily as she smiled and read the letter, her feet swinging in the air behind her.

"Ugh… Ginny… what do you see in that bloke?" Ron groaned.

Ginny sent her brother a scowl. "Seamus is a really great guy, and a year ago, before I fancied him, you would have agreed with me."

"Sure, he's a good laugh, but he's not nearly good enough to be dating my little sister."

Ginny went from glowering to smiling. "Ron, that was slightly sweet of you to say."

"Well, he's not," Ron grumbled, then he came to greater attention and turned to look toward Harry. "How did we both end up having this conversation?"

Harry chuckled. "I don't know."

Ginny turned a puzzled look to Harry. "You talked to someone about Seamus not being good enough for me?" She looked slightly wounded by the thought, as though she'd counted on having Harry and Hermione on her side in this Seamus battle. Hermione was a bit curious herself; she'd never heard Harry say he actually disapproved of Ginny dating Seamus, much less any clue as to with whom he might have been discussing it.

Harry gave a wry half-smile. "No, ah, actually, I kind of told Ron that he wasn't good enough for Hermione."

Hermione fought a smile, because Ron was in the room and his feelings had to be considered. Still, she'd never heard this story before. "You did?"

Harry glanced at her and barely blushed. "Uh… yeah. Back when we had that big row."

"He screamed it at me, actually, right before he busted out those windows." Ron gave a self-deprecating chortle, ready to have a good laugh about the whole situation when it had not been the least bit amusing at the time. "But then, he fancied himself the only one fit enough for you even then, back when the two of you were being daft about it all."

Ginny grunted agreement.

Hermione almost giggled and traced the fingertips of her free hand up Harry's forearm. He shivered and she grinned at what her merest touch could do to him. "We _were_ daft."

"I didn't fancy myself fit for Hermione," Harry argued to Ron's remark, "I _still_ don't."

"Honestly?" Hermione asked, slightly taken aback by Harry's words. He'd said as much to her at Christmas, of course, but still an insecure part of her found it hard to believe that Harry would think himself unworthy of her. When it was the complete opposite if it was anything. She realized, as she looked at him, that she'd truly thought the conversation they'd had at her grandmother's would banish any notion of the sort from his mind. The idea that Harry Potter wasn't good enough for plain Hermione Granger… their one talk should have been plenty enough to set him straight on the matter. After all, it shouldn't take much to make one see something glaringly obvious… if it was the truth.

Harry looked at her, almost stunned that she could think otherwise. "Do you even have to ask? Come on, Hermione, you're, well… you're _amazing_. I'm not nearly fit for you, you _know_ I believe that, and to be honest I'm a bit worried one day you'll figure that out." The underlying distress in his tone said the rest that he had not vocalized… that he was scared Hermione would 'come to her senses' and leave him.

In that moment, her love for him was all-consuming, even as it burned and compelled her to stop the ache that his fears made them share. Hermione leaned in and kissed Harry on the cheek in an effort to allay his concerns. "One, there's no chance of that happening. And two, if either of us is 'dating above their station' so to say, it's me."

Harry made a sour face.

Hermione just shrugged in a helpless gesture of apology and affection. She saw no reason to pursue the subject further. They'd been over this ground before, Harry knew she saw him as more than she justly deserved by all rights, and it seemed neither would be so easily dissuaded from their convictions by a few words to the contrary. She knew she still held to her prior beliefs, and Harry had just confirmed he did the same.

Ginny sat up and crossed her legs. "Truthfully," she mused aloud, "most of the wizarding world would agree with Hermione on that one. Not _me_, of course, so don't go taking that the wrong way, Hermione, I mean in the eyes of the _rest_ of the wizarding world…"

Hermione waved it off without offense; she knew what Ginny meant and that she wasn't speaking for herself when she reflected on the public view of Harry. Being the girlfriend of a famous young man, Hermione was pretty well acclimated to disassociating private Harry from public Harry Potter and how she related to each in the mass's eyes.

"But to be fair, Hermione does have an impossible task in that. I'm not sure who the public would see as being a fit match for Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived."

"But that's not _me_," Harry insisted, rather vehemently to Hermione's slightly startled surprise. "That whole Boy Who Lived stuff is rubbish. All of it. All those things people say about the famous Harry Potter, it's about a person who doesn't exist. If they knew me at all, the _real_ me, they'd never question whether Hermione was good enough. _Never_."

There was a very simple solution to the dilemma, in Hermione's mind. "Let them have the famous Harry Potter," she said gently to calm him, "he makes little difference. I'm in love with the real Harry, and as long as I have him I'm happy," 'and lucky' she thought additionally to herself, "and everyone else in the wizarding world can sod off."

Harry took a measured breath and looked at her, searching her face for the truth of her assertion. Hermione smiled to show him she meant it and tracked her fingers once again up his forearm, ending her traveling hand's journey by curling it around his upper arm and giving him a miniature hug.

The flicker of panic and distress left his eyes and he almost smiled.

"Do I need to remind you two that some of us just ate?" Ron broke into their moment with a whine.

Hermione loosened her hold on Harry's arm and looked toward Ron. Ginny was casting her brother a scathing look for his intrusion on Harry and Hermione's 'moment'. "You have to be about the most intolerable git in the universe. You keep on like that and you're likely to die a lonely old man."

"Hey, I'm sure there are plenty of girls who can appreciate a no-frills straight-talker, someone who's a real 'what you see is what you get' bloke," Ron protested. "That'll be the type of girl for Ronald Weasley. No games or riddles or sap. _Surely_ those kinds of girls exist." Ron's certainty wavered. "Right?"

Ginny took pity on her older brother. "Somewhere, probably. Best of luck with that."

"As I don't have any big brother hang-ups, I imagine it's all right for me to say that I think you and Seamus make a wonderful couple," Hermione said to Ginny.

Ginny smiled brightly. "Thanks, Hermione."

Ron looked at Hermione as though betrayed. He touched his chest with one hand. "That hurt," he said tragically, though there was a faint hint of teasing in his voice. Ron looked next at Harry. "Come on, Harry, back me up here. Tell Ginny what a wanker Seamus is."

Harry looked between Ron, Ginny, and then Hermione, each in turn watching him for his response, and finally Harry said, "I'm going to have to abstain on this one."

Ron narrowed his eyes at Harry, again with that trace of humor in his tone, "Traitor."

Ginny looked pleased as she turned back to reading her letter.

Hermione chuckled, drew her hand out of Harry's, and pulled out the Everything Fact Book on Big Cats from her bag. She dragged it up into her lap, her bookmark wedged in the chapter about lions. She opened the book to her marked place and idly studied the pictures and their accompanying captions.

"Do _not_ tell me that's a book for class," Ron wailed.

Hermione smiled and looked up. "No, it's a Christmas present from Harry." She picked it up so Ron could see the cover. Ron's expression changed at once. "_Ahhhh_… good one, Harry."

"Did you two get anything good for Christmas?" Hermione asked as she set the book down in her lap again. Surely Christmas apart from the disruption courtesy of Voldemort (which presents bought well before the incident would have to be) would be a safe, enjoyable topic of conversation for everyone present.

Ginny looked up from her letter and beamed. "I did! I got this outfit fashioned after the clothes that the witch dragon-keepers wear when they're not on the job. It's really wicked! Made of dragon leather and snug and _very_ flattering. It's the only gift I got this year, aside the standard sweater Mum made; everyone in the family had to pitch in to buy it for me, but I absolutely love it. I can't wait for Seamus to see it."

"If Seamus sees you in that outfit I really will have to hurt him, Ginny," Ron stated. When Ginny threw him a dark look Ron held up his hands helplessly. "I'm just saying, if he sees you in that he'll pay for it with pain."

"How about you, Ron?" Hermione asked before the siblings could start in on another fight.

"Yeah, I got a new broom from Cousin Wulgrig! The man might stink, but at least he gives good presents. It's just a Cleansweep, nothing new or anything, but it was a better model than my old broom and it has my name engraved on the handle."

"What about you, Harry? What did you get?" Ginny asked.

"Oh, and remind me later Mum made a sweater for you, too," Ron tossed in then gave a wave for Harry to go on with answering Ginny's question.

"Uh… well, I got a football from Jake. And, uh…" Harry started to blush. Hermione, too, started to color when it became obvious of which present Harry was thinking.

"What?" Ginny asked eagerly, catching on to the fact that this was going to be something really interesting from her friends' reactions.

"Do I really have to say?" Harry groaned. "It's horribly embarrassing."

Ron's curiosity was piqued now, too. "Can't be that bad. What did you get?"

Harry slouched where he sat, dejected in defeat. "Gram got me a… box of condoms."

Ron and Ginny stared blankly at Harry. "What are condoms?" Ginny eventually asked.

Harry looked imploringly to Hermione, leaving it to her to explain. She blushed a new shade of scarlet and made a face when Ron and Ginny looked at her. "Well… they're… you see, muggles can't cast a contraceptive charm when they have sex, so to prevent unwanted pregnancy muggles use condoms." She stopped to clear her throat. "They're, uh… little rubber bags a bloke puts on his… _you know_."

It took all of two seconds to click. Then Ron began to laugh raucously. Ginny joined him a second later. Ron hooted and cackled and laughed until he was holding his sides in pain. "Oh! That's… _muggles_! That's a _great_ laugh. Dad would _die laughing_ if he knew about _condoms_!" He wiped his eyes and said through his laughter, "Have you got them here, Harry? Let's have a look at them."

Harry paled. "I most certainly will _not_!"

Ginny, in a fit of giggles, said, "Oh, _really_, Harry, we don't want to see you model one, but… come on! Little… rubber…" she burst into peals of laughter that robbed her of speech.

"Have to… have to… see this," Ron gasped.

"It's not funny; I opened them right in front of the whole family. Jake and Miranda saw them!"

"Oh," Ginny got control of herself, though she was still smiling broadly despite her best efforts, "were they mad?"

Harry just made a tortured face.

Hermione smirked. "No… they were really good about it. Gave Gram more grief than they did us. It's just like her to do something like that."

"Your grandmum must be a real prankster, Hermione, to give Harry little rubber willy slickers for Christmas," Ron said with an arm around his ribcage.

Harry snorted and began to barely smile, despite himself. "Gram _is_ a character, I'll give you that."

While Ron and Ginny were making fun of the muggles and their primitive way of doing things, Hermione took Harry's hand to get his attention. When he looked at her she meaningfully touched the medallion through her clothes in question. Harry looked down at her hand framing the shape of the medallion, understanding flared, and he gave a small smile and nodded.

Hermione gave Harry's hand a squeeze and looked toward Ron. "And Harry also gave me this," she said clearly and drew the medallion out of her clothes to hold it up.

Ron's laughing trailed off, he looked, then all laughter stopped instantly and his eyes went wide. He shot out of his chair and strode over to where the couple was sitting. He bent down to look closely at the medallion, even as he took it from Hermione's hand to examine it even closer. Hermione had to lean forward to keep from getting the chain pressed into the back of her neck. Ron gaped at the gold disc. "Wow," he breathed, "that's to Harry's vault?"

Rather than comment on how it would be stupid to think Harry would give her a medallion to someone else's vault, she answered, "Yes."

Ron shook his head in wonder, then he slid a sidelong look at Harry. "You know, mate, the goblins at Gringotts will figure her to be your wife with this thing."

"Since she will be my wife, that's not a problem."

Ron's jaw dropped open. "Huh…?"

"I asked Hermione to marry me."

"You did _what_?"

"Asked Hermione—"

"I heard what you said. I just can't believe it. What did she say?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I said I'd think about it and consider the contending offers before I got back to him. What do you _think_ I said, Ron?"

Ron dropped the medallion and stepped back. "Well, I, I just… Merlin's beard! You're going to _marry_ Harry?!"

"You all right, Ron? You look like you're freaking out a fair bit," Hermione said in concern as she absently touched the medallion, once more resting back in its proper place between her breasts.

"I'm not freaking out. Who's freaking out? Not me. No freaking out for Ron Weasley.

"Aren't you both too young to get married?"

"We're not getting married _tomorrow_."

"Right…" Ron nodded, "course not, that was stupid of me." He raked a hand through his hair, causing it to stand up in places, and with the fire's light dancing through it from behind him his hair seemed to be a real flame itself. He paced to the fireplace and back while Ginny sat on the floor looking up at her brother.

"Ron?" Hermione ventured, not sure how to take his reaction to the news.

"I'm fine. I am… I'm just… it's taking a minute to really sink in." After a few seconds he stopped and turned to consider both of his friends. He pointed to Hermione. "You're going to be Harry's wife." Then he pointed at Harry. "You're going to be Hermione's husband."

"That's usually how it works," Hermione quipped.

"Right. That's… wow. Just… wow."

"Good wow or bad wow?" Harry asked.

Ron seemed to consider that a moment. "Good wow. Yeah, definitely good wow. Whoa!, but wow."

"Ah, well, glad that's clear as muddy water," Hermione muttered.

"_Processing here_," Ron said while pointing at his chest emphatically. He looked truly pained for a moment, then he gave a conclusive nod and looked up as though through with a counsel meeting. "You two should get married. You know? I mean, Harry's the only one that can put up with all of Hermione's _Hermioneness_, and Hermione will keep Harry from getting a big head from all the fame."

"Well, with _that_ ringing endorsement," Hermione said, but it was with a smile. "We know it's… 'atypical' for people our age to get engaged, but… you're right, in your buggered way of coming at it… Harry and I are best suited for each other."

Ron nodded. "Right. No other way it could have gone, really."

Ginny smiled devilishly and said, "I think that was Ron's way of saying that the two of you were meant to be together."

Ron rounded on his sister defensively. "There's no reason to get ugly, Ginny. You know I'd never say anything so… mushy. Blugh. And aren't you just a little shocked right now?"

"No… but Hermione told me about Harry proposing earlier this morning. I thought it was great news."

Ron mulled that over as he nodded. "It is. Yeah, it is. Just… surprising, is all." With that, Ron turned back to Harry and Hermione. "Good for you two."

"Yeah, congratulations, Harry," Ginny threw in past her brother.

"Thanks," Harry said earnestly, and Hermione threaded her fingers through Harry's while she curled her other hand around the crook of his elbow.

Ron sat back down in the armchair and brushed both hands through his hair, which thoroughly ruffled any hair that may have missed his earlier one-handed swipe. "Blimey. Harry and Hermione getting married.

"So do your parents have any idea about this?" Ron asked with a gesture between Hermione and Harry to define 'this'.

Hermione smiled faintly as she recalled that dreadful yesterday… and the spot of utter happiness in the midst of so much ugliness. She glanced shyly at Harry and then answered, "We didn't outright tell them, not about deciding to get married, but they were across the yard from us when Harry asked me, they were watching us the whole time, and I think it's fair to say they sussed out what was going on."

"And how did they take it?" Ginny asked warily. Happy for her friends or not, she didn't seem to expect Hermione's parents to take kindly to their fifteen-year-old daughter consenting to marriage to a fifteen-year-old boy. Truly, it would be without the expectations of any teenager to hope for a warm reception to such a life-changing decision at such a tender age.

"They didn't say anything against it when we rejoined them. Not that I expected they would. My parents really like Harry."

"They do?" Ginny asked hopefully, sounding much more cheerful to at least know that there hadn't been some ugly family drama precipitated by the marriage proposal.

Hermione nodded. "Mum hugs and kisses him like he was her own, and Dad even calls Harry 'son' sometimes."

Ron glanced at Harry with a dubious 'is that true' lift to his eyebrows. Harry offered a sheepish shrug and crooked smile for verification. "I really like Hermione's mum and dad; they're really great people. I've grown very… attached to them."

Hermione pressed her lips together as she watched emotions flickering over Harry's features as he spoke of Jake and Miranda. She could read Harry well enough to understand that when he said he was 'attached' to them, it was the closest he'd yet been able to bring himself to admitting that he loved her parents in some measure. Maybe even saw them as a substitute for the parents he'd never known (never a replacement, of course, but a substitute).

"Well, that's a load off not having to worry about the in-laws then, eh?" Ron provided with a smirk.

"Yeah," Harry returned in a distracted voice, from Hermione's guess still thinking about Jake and Miranda and how far he had come with them in the last year.

"Can't imagine my mum would be at all thrilled if I owled her today and told her that I was going to marry some girl, even if it was a girl like Hermione. Just would not go over well at all in our house. Mum would probably assume I'd knocked her up or—" Ron suddenly stopped and shot a look over at Harry, a look that went from shocked to… one of mounting fury.

"_Harry_… you _didn't_—"

"Huh?"

"Of _course_ he didn't, Ron," Hermione snapped peevishly.

Harry looked slightly baffled but increasingly insulted as he looked between his two friends and caught up to the implied gist conversation. "Didn't what? _Get Hermione pregnant_?! No!" Harry leveled a sharp glare at Ron for the insinuation.

Ron held up his hands. "Hey, don't get cross, it's a fair question!"

"Fair and incredibly uncouth, but the answer is _no_," Hermione replied curtly.

"Right… sorry I even brought it up."

Ginny was making a face as she sat in silence thinking through the little spat, Seamus's letter curled on the floor between her legs. "You know," she intruded on the recent truce, "Ron brings up a point, clumsy and rude as it was in its execution. When this gets out, about you two getting engaged, a lot of people are going to assume that's what did happen." To Harry and Hermione's continued disgruntled looks, the younger Weasley shrugged and said, "Let's face it, there aren't a whole lot of reasons for two people your age to seriously contemplate marriage unless it's because the girl's found herself in a family way."

Harry looked over at Hermione and made his decision quite quickly. "Then we won't tell anyone; it'll stay between the four of us and Hermione's family."

"Well, and Dumbledore," Hermione added off-handedly, "but I don't think there's much danger that he's going to be whispering it to people in the loo."

Ron snorted.

Harry nodded in agreement, then he continued, "It's probably safer for Hermione that way, too. If Voldemort was to find out what Hermione meant to me… it can't end well, and I won't risk it." Harry stopped and frowned as he turned the subject over in his head. "Of course, there's the chance that Voldemort or one of his followers could get the truth of the medallion I gave Hermione out of the goblin I bought it from, or any goblin overseeing my account that happens to notice Hermione's been given full access, but there's little we can do about that now. But best we don't let it spread any farther than we possibly can."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"In our favor, Gringotts goblins are notoriously tough nuts to crack when it comes to bank security. They wouldn't even tell their spouses about a client. Their work ethic is nothing if not impeccably observant of regulations controlling banking practices," Hermione noted, "so I wouldn't think the goblins at Gringotts are really much of a risk."

"Good," Harry said plainly. "One less to worry about, then."

"If You Know Who finds out about you and Hermione, it won't be from one of us," Ron said resolutely. Ginny nodded firm agreement.

Without the need for further assurances, Hermione and Harry believed them completely and had full faith that they would keep their word.

With things settled and back to status quo amid the four, they each agreed it was getting late and that they should retire for the night. Harry and Hermione bid one another farewell and the girls split from the boys to head up to their separate bedrooms. Ginny, being in a different year than Hermione, slept in a different dorm room, and Lavender was still out with Oliver, so Hermione reached her dorm room and its five beds to find herself the only occupant. Harry's Quidditch shirt was still lying on her bed where she'd tossed it that morning. She smiled to herself as she put away her things, changed out of her clothes, and put on the maroon and gold shirt that she'd appropriated as sleep attire. She brought the material to her nose, breathed in deeply, and closed her eyes briefly when she found that it still smelled of Harry.

Hermione crawled contently into bed and lay on her side, trying to fall asleep.

An hour later, she knew it was going to be a long night waiting for sleep to come. Crookshanks had joined her well into her efforts to doze off, and he lay curled at the foot of her bed purring lightly as he cat-napped. Usually, the rhythmic purring helped her fall asleep, Crookshanks was like having her own personal white noise stereo, but not tonight. Her cat purred on but Hermione remained sleepless. His eyes opened every time Hermione changed position in bed to try and get comfortable enough to go to sleep. She ended up tossing and turning quite a bit. Hermione finally decided it was hopeless when Crookshanks tired of her restlessness and jumped off her bed to find a more accommodating place to snooze.

With a final grunt of frustration, Hermione turned onto her back and stared up in the direction of her bed canopy, lost in the night's shadows.

Then she knew what she had to do if she harbored any hope of a decent night's sleep.

Hermione tossed back the covers and got out of bed. Out of habit, she grabbed her wand from the nightstand next to her bed. Dressed only in Harry's shirt, she left her dorm room, descended the stairs, crossed the empty common room, and went up the stairwell to the boys' dorm room. There she became careful and mindful of being silent. When she reached her destination, she pushed open the familiar wood door and peered inside. She heard Ron snoring before she was able to make out anything with her eyes, but as soon as her eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness of the room she crept inside and made for Harry's bed.

She half expected him to be asleep, but she didn't startle either when an errant sliver of moonlight reflected off Harry's cat-enhanced retinas when she neared his bed. He was watching her approach, and when Hermione reached out to feel her way around his bed she discovered Harry already holding the covers open for her.

With a grin, she set her wand down on the nightstand next to his and slipped into the warm blankets with him. She immediately shifted closer to him. Harry dropped the blanket around them and looped his arm around her back to draw her closer.

"Couldn't sleep?" he whispered in a low, absolutely disarming hushed voice. For a moment, it robbed her of rational thought.

Hermione shook her head and brought up her hand between them to trace her fingers over his chest, covered by his shirt's thin layer of cotton. "I like sharing a bed with you," she confessed with a sigh.

Harry's arm around her tightened momentarily. "Me too."

Hermione absently drew patterns over his chest with her fingers, mindless and content. She was already feeling closer to sleep than she had been in the entire hour she was tossing and turning in her own bed. It said so much of the peace that Harry could bring to her just by being with her. Her eyes closed partway as she fingered nameless lullabies on his skin.

Harry's breathing changed and he took his arm away from being draped over her to still her hand with his own. "Better stop that."

"Hmmm?"

"What you're doing with your hand. I… like it too much."

Hermione blushed in the darkness. "Oh." She kept her hand from idle wandering, but mentally she was cataloguing. She best remember what things Harry 'liked too much'… one day there would be no reason she couldn't do those things and more to him.

The thought sent a wild thrill through her and she had to restrain herself from sighing expansively. If her mindlessly trekking fingers made him respond, there was little question that a breathy sigh exhaled right into his chest would only make matters worse.

Harry returned his arm to its previous place around her body and Hermione snuggled closer. Harry gave a muffled grunt when she pressed into the evidence of just how bewitched he'd been by her fingers, but Harry tugged her flush against him all the same.

Hermione felt a slight smile fixed at the corners of her mouth. She was the very definition of comfortable, far more comfortable than she'd been in her dorm room. She looked forward to the day when she and Harry could share a bed without the need to sneak around about it. It would be nice not to have Ron's snoring in the background, either.

"Mione?" Harry barely breathed.

"Mmmm?"

"I'm sorry."

Hermione's smile slipped and her eyebrows drew together. "For what?"

Harry was lying very still. "For when I asked you to marry me."

A lance of panic and pure, white-hot ache raced through her chest in a split-second. Confusion warred with devastation as she struggled to wrap her head around this sudden, drastic change. "What?" she asked in a thin voice.

Perhaps hearing the impending anguish in her voice, his hold on her tightened. "Oh, no, I don't mean that. Merlin, I'd _never_ regret asking you. I mean, I'm sorry for _when_ I asked you."

"Oh… I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Well, I think I botched it."

Hermione frowned in the darkness, even more confused if it were at all possible.

"Just… we were there at my aunt and uncle's, and someone had just been killed, and your family's Christmas had been ruined, and… I should have found a better time and place to ask you. I'm sorry."

Her relief was palpable. Hermione reached out and curled her arm around Harry's side. "Harry… there would never be a wrong time to ask me to marry you."

"But… it was pretty wretched timing."

"I wouldn't change it for anything."

For a moment there was only silence. "Really?"

"Really. And you know why?"

"No…" Harry trailed.

"Because I love you. Any place and any time you could have asked, that would have been the same."

Harry had no words in reply to that. He shifted against her, for a moment banishing all thoughts of sleep in Hermione when his body moved against hers, until Harry perched his chin atop her head, in the process drawing her face toward his chest tenderly. Innocent and wonderful and her rightful place.

"I love you, too," Harry said in a barely audible voice; she felt it rumble through his chest more than she could actually hear it.

Hermione smiled into his chest as she began to slip toward the twilight of dreams, Harry's chin resting easily on the top of her head. One day, she'd have to tell Harry just how much she loved it when he did that.


	56. Chapter 56

Hermione was in the place that most people would naturally expect her to be, the library. After waking that morning (to Ron's chagrin when he found that Hermione had snuck into their room last night to bunk up with Harry), Ron had cajoled Harry into coming down to the Quidditch pitch after breakfast for a bit of flying. Not that Harry was kicking and screaming the whole way. Hermione was invited to watch; she was invited to join them, but it was mostly courtesy as Ron and Harry both knew Hermione wasn't about to get on a broom unless it was a matter of necessity, and even then assuming she hadn't thought of a way to circumvent the need. Had Ginny consented to share the stands with her while the boys played, Hermione might have given in. As it was, Ginny planned to spend her morning writing a letter back to Seamus. Rather than sit alone and cold in the pitch stands, Hermione begged off to spend her morning in the library.

She was glad Harry was getting a chance to have some fun. After the Christmas day he'd had, he deserved to blow off some steam and get the cobwebs out of his head. Flying did that nicely for him, and she would not have dreamed of dissuading Harry from going outside. The winter weather had let up and it was a bright, clear day outside. The kind of day that called to Harry.

It gave Hermione a chance to work ahead in her classes for next term, since Ron would be apt to have an epileptic fit if he saw her working on class material. It was best done out of his sight, and if he was out flying with Harry it gave her a comfortable window of time to do as she pleased, and it pleased her to do homework. She had the library to herself, which was a special treat for someone like Hermione. After a few hours reading ahead in her class textbooks, she got up and wandered the stacks, reading titles and pulling out any books that looked interesting. It seemed Hogwarts had no end of books that Hermione would like to read someday. She decided to take a few back to her room with her.

She confessed to herself that she may have gotten a bit carried away as she looked at the pile of books she ended up with on the table next to her bag that she intended to take back to her dorm room. She regarded the stack critically a moment and briefly considered shrinking them to fit easily in her bag… but Hermione had a strange aversion to tampering with books. She knew, intellectually, that reducing then restoring their size didn't damage the books in any way, but a fixed muggle part of her clung to the heavy, solid mass of a book. Books were a comfort for their heavy store of knowledge, their unyielding form as a source of information. She magicked books when she had to, but given the choice Hermione didn't care for it. Not with books.

She put back a few books she decided she wouldn't have time to get to reading anyway, and the stack that remained she deemed manageable enough for her to carry the old-fashioned muggle way.

With her bag weighted down and her arms full of books, Hermione left the library and started back toward Gryffindor tower. The corridors were even barer of students than yesterday, given the lovely winter weather outside. Hermione would not have been surprised to find out she was the only student still indoors. In any place but Hogwarts, the complete emptiness and sense of solitude in the deserted grand hallways might have been disconcerting, but Hermione didn't think about anything of that nature as she walked at an easy pace back toward her room.

It was hard to imagine a life away from Hogwarts; it had been so fundamental in her world for years that it seemed almost a part of her. She'd become so accustomed to the halls and routines and every corner and custom of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she could only imagine the mixed exultation and anxiety when it came time to leave the school behind. She suspected it would be much the same for Harry, though for different reasons. It had been the first place he'd ever felt comfortable calling home in his life. He had really came into his own at Hogwarts; before that he'd only been an unwanted freak tucked away in the cupboard of his aunt and uncle's house.

"Well, what have we here," a scathing voice issued unexpectedly from what Hermione had thought was an empty hallway. She startled from her thoughts and in the process dropped one of her books. It landed with a heavy thud as she spun around and saw Draco Malfoy standing in the shadow of a suit of armor, leering condescendingly at her.

Hermione scowled angrily. "What do you think you're doing, Malfoy?"

"Scaring the little mudblood out of her wits, looks like," he answered haughtily.

Hermione shook her head and turned to retrieve her book. She knelt down and found it took a bit of shuffling of the tomes in her arms before she could reach down for the dropped book.

"Dangerous time for your kind to be out alone, don't you think?" Draco asked as he pushed off from leaning against the wall and walked toward her.

"What are you on about," Hermione groused, doing her best to ignore him as she picked up the book and placed it among the others in her arms. She stood and startled to find Draco right in front of her when she turned. She stepped back and glowered at him.

"Just awfully careless of you. Here in the hall all by yourself with no one to rescue you."

"I don't have anything to fear in Hogwarts, and I can take care of myself."

"I know what happened to Potter's cousin."

Hermione's mouth opened in surprise at his statement. "How…" she stammered. Dumbledore would not have told anyone who didn't have good reason to know, it wasn't in the _Daily Prophet_, only the ministry knew about the attack on the Dursleys. Them, and…

Hermione gasped. "Your _father_ was part of that atrocity, wasn't he?"

"Did I say that?" Draco gave a devil-may-care shrug of his shoulders and crossed his arms impudently. "Let's just say I have my sources. But I would think that what happened to that fat, simpering muggle would make you just a bit jumpy. After all, from muggle it's a short step to mudblood."

"Are you threatening me?" Hermione growled.

"I don't have to," Draco clipped back. "The Dark Lord's out for blood, and yours and that of your kind will be next. Can't say I'm particularly broken up about it. It's about time the filth was cleansed from the wizarding world."

Hermione tried to push past Draco, but when she moved Draco stepped to the side, blocking her path. Hermione stopped and just barely clutched her books tighter. Were it not for their presence she'd already have her wand in hand, or maybe she'd have simply slugged Malfoy in the nose to remind him just how unafraid she was of all his posturing and bluster. But with her hands full, she wasn't in a convenient position to fight back. Should she imagine an honest need to do so in the fist place, and so far she really didn't see cause for concern. She wouldn't get tied in knots by insults, least of all from the likes of Draco. It came down to the fact that the situation wasn't quite to the point where she believed she should drop everything to go for her wand. After all, it was just Draco being his usual, loathsome self and there was little real danger in that. And Draco's nature aside, this was an encounter in the halls of Hogwarts between two students of rival houses; it didn't seem feasible that anything _too_ dangerous could transpire. Hermione trusted in the safety of Hogwarts too much to believe it. It gave her the freedom and confidence to shrug off the Slytherin's taunts and empty threats as just irritating chatter in her ear.

But trust in the sanctuary provided by Hogwarts's halls though she may, as only a devote student could (given some of the disasters that had befallen in the four and a half years that she herself had attended the school), neither was she about to let herself be fooled by the seemingly untouchable… not after Christmas morning. With the look in Draco's eyes, a newly cautious part of her, tucked in the back of her mind, feared it might come to violence shortly despite Draco's track record of being little more than a big mouth. That kernel of doubt in her thoughts made her look closer where a week ago she would have brushed past with a closed expression. There were small details that brought her up short. She'd never seen Draco quite so… purposeful. He was often vile and cruel, but he was also a great deal of talk. Draco Malfoy was counted one of the lesser concerns at Hogwarts, in Hermione's estimations, because he'd sooner make a lot of noise than get physical. He thrived on the power of intimidation. But something in the way he was standing before her, his face set and dark… she almost believed he was hoping to go past mouthing off this time.

He was watching her with a superior look of revulsion on his sharp face, as though Hermione were a disfigured house elf. "Not even going to try and punch me this time? I'd love to see you try; I was taken by surprise last time, you know, don't think I couldn't have gotten you first if I'd known you were going to pull something as stupid as laying a hand on a pureblood. Well, go on, then, try it now." Draco snorted when Hermione didn't move. "Not so mean when you don't have those two drooling sods fawning all over you, are you?" Draco sneered and moved a step closer. On reflex, Hermione took a step back.

"I'm not scared of you, Malfoy," Hermione said lowly.

Draco did not take kindly to that defiance. "You _should_ be scared. You should be pissing yourself to know the Dark Lord and his followers would love nothing more than to bathe the floors in your dirty blood."

"Speaking for yourself there too, are you?" Hermione bit back even as she took another half-step away from Draco. This was about to get out of hand. What was Draco playing at?

"Well now, if I _were_ in league with Voldemort you might think to be very, very careful what you said. Might get back to some very unfriendly ears."

"You're just a cowardly little boy, Malfoy, you'd break down in tears if you had to face Voldemort, even if it was to lick his feet." Then Hermione made a very, very big mistake. Intent on getting out of the hallway and back to Gryffindor tower before the situation escalated, she plowed past Draco. When she passed him Draco hissed furiously and unexpectedly crowded her… and Hermione gasped and dropped her armload of books with a thunderous, echoing clatter when she felt Draco take her wand from her jeans back pocket.

She turned at once to face Malfoy but it was too late to snatch back her wand. He was standing a pace away with the instrument firmly in hand… and venom in his eyes.

"Foul little mudblood bitch!" Draco spat.

"Stop this right now or I'll tell the headmaster; you'll be lucky not to be expelled," Hermione returned.

Draco barked. "Ha! You think someone like me could get expelled? A word from my father to the right people and I could have your precious Dumbledore out on his arse."

"I highly doubt that," Hermione said with absolute certainty. "You underestimate Dumbledore and think too much of your pathetic father."

Draco stepped closer again and this time Hermione plainly stepped away. She was magically defenseless and Draco had his own wand as well as hers.

"I'll look forward to seeing you get yours, mudblood. The time's come when your kind pays for sullying great wizard family lines with your slutty, dirty blood." Draco then swept a look up and down Hermione's body and it made her stomach knot and her blood go cold. Draco smiled, lascivious and vicious. "Although, almost a shame to _waste_ all that with killing you right off. Maybe the Death Eaters will have a bit of fun with you before they kill you. You're not good enough to whelp some pureblood wizard's half-breed abomination, but spreading your legs so those superior to you can have a good time before dispensing with you…" Draco stepped closer again and Hermione found her back pressed against the wall. She didn't realize she'd been so close to the wall until she bumped into it. It startled her and she clamped her lips closed around a whimper, because she wouldn't give Draco the satisfaction of thinking he'd scared her.

Hermione thought she might have to do something drastic. Draco was moving in closer, and she didn't know what he intended to do, but it wasn't just talk anymore.

Then a loud, guttural snarl tore her focused attention away from Draco's dangerous proximity. Draco's menacing leer flickered when he, too, heard the noise. He turned his head to the left to look.

Hermione glanced in the same direction he did, but the next few seconds seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Draco went from fierce offender to scared stiff boy in a fraction of a second. He let out a cry of panic, a cry that was echoed by a bestial one of rage, and then black was lunging at Draco. Draco moved his hand reflexively to aim Hermione's wand, but he was not nearly fast enough and he was taken down with a cry of pain and shock. Hermione's wand skittered across the floor while Draco was pinned flat on his back.

Hermione stood back against the wall, blinking, when she finally registered what she was seeing. Draco was writhing and crying on the floor while Harry, in his panther animagus form, was standing over the blond Slytherin. Harry had his claws in Draco's upper arms… he was piercing cloth and skin and blood was smearing the floor under Draco's trapped arms.

Draco screamed and struggled. Harry roared; it folded back on them off the hollow corridors until it seemed a thousand jaguars were screaming in combined rage. His feline muscles were taut and his body rigid with fury while Draco flailed helplessly beneath him. Harry dug his claws in deeper.

Hermione stared, wide-eyed, and truly believed she was about to watch Draco die. Harry was going to kill him, and though she knew she should stop it, she couldn't force her body to move to intervene.

Harry had his sharp teeth bared, canines poised, claws embedded in his prey, and Draco was wailing and crying uncontrollably.

Hermione opened her mouth but no sound came out.

Suddenly, Harry was flung from Draco's prone body, as though a giant had taken him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside like one might a misbehaving kitten. Harry screamed and twisted furiously and came down in a ready crouch, tail lashing and claws gouging the tile floor.

Hermione snapped her head to the left to see what had pulled Harry off of Draco. She saw Dumbledore running toward them, his hand lowering after tearing Harry away from Draco. Now freed, Draco was cradling his bleeding arms; once the claws had been removed they were bleeding even more heavily.

Harry screamed angrily and charged.

Dumbledore's hand snapped up to stop him.

"_No_!" Hermione cried, but it didn't stop Harry being caught in a full body bind while in full stride. His legs locked under him and he went down, screeching indignantly but helpless to move to so much as break his fall.

Dumbledore, heedless of the black jaguar locked in a stop-action position in Hogwarts's corridors, dropped down next to Draco. Hermione rushed to Harry and knelt before him. He looked up at her, eyes alive and active even if his body was frozen and immobile. She touched his head then turned to retrieve her wand. Her only thought was to unbind Harry, to free him. He was struggling and she had to help him.

She raced to her wand where Draco had dropped it when he was tackled and closed her fingers around the wood, but no sooner had she done so than Dumbledore whirled on her. "_Miss Granger_!" he bellowed.

Hermione stopped cold and gaped at the headmaster.

Dumbledore was in no mood for disobedience and it radiated off of him in veritable waves. "Do _not_ unbind Harry until I give you leave." With that unequivocal command, he turned back to tending Draco.

Hermione stood, frozen in place by Dumbledore's order, then she returned to Harry and dropped to the floor beside him. She put her one arm around him and petted his head with the other, banned from doing anything else for him. Harry was breathing rapidly and she could feel his heart racing, but she was relegated to providing him only touch for comfort while she watched Dumbledore.

Draco was curled on the floor crying. He was lying in a fair pool of blood by then. Hermione would not have thought it possible, but Draco looked even more ashen and pale than usual for the blood loss. Dumbledore let his hand hover over Draco's face and at once the boy stopped everything. He stopped writhing, he stopped crying, he stopped cradling his arms. He went supple and limp, as though comatose. He even stared upward with unblinking, vacant eyes.

Dumbledore produced his wand for the first time since coming upon the confrontation in the hallway, levitated Draco's body, and left hurriedly with him, a thin trail of blood droplets marking his exit.

Hermione didn't know what to do then, left alone in the corridor with a bound Harry. She still couldn't release him, Dumbledore had not given her permission to, and he'd been very clear that when she was allowed to do it he'd tell her in no uncertain terms. He'd left nothing open to her interpretation in that respect. Hermione could feel Harry's muscles rigid beneath her hands… he was fighting the bind.

"Don't fight it, Harry, please," she whispered. She dreaded to think of him hurting himself struggling against a hopeless cause. Maybe she would imagine him capable of breaking a body bind cast by someone else, but not Dumbledore. Her words were no use. Harry didn't seem capable of relaxing… strained, incensed sounds continued to emit from his throat and his eyes flicked in agitation, returning again and again to Hermione, while his breathing labored and his heart hammered.

It seemed a matter of seconds and at once an eternity before Dumbledore returned, without Draco. Hermione knew the Slytherin would have been taken to the hospital wing. The shiny pool of ruby blood on the floor was testament enough of that.

When Dumbledore came striding down the hallway toward them again Hermione rose… and found herself standing between Dumbledore and Harry.

Dumbledore eyed her. "Stand aside, Miss Granger."

Hermione wanted to obey, but she couldn't make her feet move. "What are you going to do to him?"

"I'm going to give him something to tear apart before he kills someone," Dumbledore answered evenly, and he beckoned Hermione to come away from Harry and stand beside him. Hermione hesitated but finally stepped over to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore then levitated Harry with a flick of his wand. Harry was an unmoving rigid shape of a cat in mid-stride but the wild sounds of protest straining from his throat were evidence of his continued heightened state of rage. Dumbledore began to walk off with Harry buoyed in the air in front of him. Without being asked to accompany them, Hermione hurried after them.

Dumbledore took his student-turned-panther into an empty classroom and said nothing when Hermione pushed in after them. Dumbledore lowered Harry's body down on his side atop the uncluttered teacher's desk. Hermione moved to go to him but Dumbledore grabbed her shoulder… rather strongly. "Don't go near him," the headmaster said bluntly.

That struck Hermione as all possible degrees of wrong. She tried to shrug Dumbledore's hand off, but the headmaster was not amused. If anything, his hand on her tightened. He literally pulled Hermione away to stand by the back wall with him, and then he gave a last twitch of his wand in Harry's general direction.

Harry sprang up on his feet with a piercing roar. His claws sank into the wood of the desk and he spun around and swiped at the blackboard for the sake of having a target. Wood splinters and chunks of blackboard went flying. Harry whirled. His claws etched deep scratches in the desktop. His claws caught on the edge of the desk and he jerked his front leg viciously. A good portion of the corner of the desk came free and hit the wall. Harry leapt down to the floor and tore at the chair behind the desk, ripping it to pieces before he finally stopped, legs braced apart and chest heaving, his back turned to them. He still looked fit to spit, but at least he wasn't tearing anything apart.

"Harry," Dumbledore ventured.

Harry whipped around and spat/hissed at Dumbledore, teeth bared dangerously and claws unsheathed. The threat was very plain to see, and in Harry's current state very real.

Hermione broke from Dumbledore quickly, before he could grab at her again. Harry's sharp eyes followed her movement. She approached Harry as he watched her with his intense hunter's gaze.

"Miss Granger," Dumbledore said anxiously, but before he could say more Hermione dropped to her knees before Harry. Harry's curled lips relaxed to cover his teeth and his claws drew back into the pads of his paws. Harry stepped immediately to Hermione and shoved his head against her chest. Hermione brought her arms up to hold him about the neck and shoulders. She hugged him while Harry breathed in deeply of her scent. Hermione could feel some of the tension in his body melt away as they stayed that way on the floor together.

"Harry…" Dumbledore said again, and, with his head still buried in Hermione's chest, Harry began to rumble a low, threatening growl.

Hermione looked toward Dumbledore, pleading in her eyes, though pleading for what she couldn't rightly say for she did not know. Dumbledore was watching the both of them closely, the expression on his face utterly unreadable. Hermione could not begin to guess what the headmaster was thinking… or what he would do.

Harry finally pulled his head away from Hermione's body and looked toward Dumbledore. Hermione's arms fell away from Harry's neck when Harry took two decidedly unfriendly steps toward the headmaster… then stopped when he was clearly standing between Dumbledore and Hermione.

At that display, Dumbledore tried a different tact. "Ahem… Miss Granger? If you would."

It didn't take the brightest witch to gather Dumbledore's intent. Hermione got up and moved to stand in front of Harry. He looked up at her, studying her while keeping an ear on Dumbledore's every move.

"Harry, please…"

Both of Harry's eyes ticked in Hermione's direction, he seemed to regard her a moment, then his haunch muscles bunched and he rose to his hind legs… only to straighten entirely as Harry Potter, wizard.

Harry's hand went out immediately and touched Hermione's arm, his face full of concern and fierceness. "Did he hurt you?"

Hermione shook her head, already dismissive of Malfoy at this point. She had much greater concerns right now than one particularly distasteful Slytherin. "No, Harry, he didn't, he was just saying horrible things…"

"Harry…" Dumbledore interjected for the third time.

Harry turned angry eyes on the headmaster. "Why did you stop me?"

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose incredulously at the outburst. "Need you honestly ask why I would not permit you to murder another student?"

"He was going to hurt Hermione!" Harry yelled.

"I do not condone Mister Malfoy's behavior, and he should be punished for cornering Miss Granger the way he did, but death is hardly called for."

Harry was still strung tight, Hermione could tell from the line of his shoulders and the set of his jaw. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Harry…" she whispered in his ear, lowly enough that Dumbledore wouldn't overhear, "mind your cat thinking."

Harry's eyes broke from Dumbledore to look quickly at her. He looked baffled at first, then understanding flared and his entire demeanor shifted… he gave Hermione an almost imperceptible nod and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Harry was at least taking control of his actions.

Dumbledore looked torn between fascinated, displeased, and wearied by the whole matter. When he noted that Harry was no longer on the cusp of a rage, he said, "I think the two of you have some explaining to do. We'll adjorn to my office to discuss this."

Hermione took Harry's hand and squeezed it tightly. It sounded suspiciously like they were in trouble. Big trouble. She didn't want to think what they would face when Dumbledore had them in his office.

The headmaster cast a _reparo_ on the objects in the room that Harry had torn apart and when all was back to the state it was before Harry's tantrum, Dumbledore gestured for Harry and Hermione to precede him out of the classroom. The corridor was still empty, the students enjoying the weather outside ignorant of the mauling that had occurred only moments before within their own school.

Dumbledore sent Harry and Hermione ahead to his office while he stayed behind to clean up the mess in the corridor before anyone else saw it.


	57. Chapter 57

A/N: Okay, this might be a bit of an abuse of the A/N function here, but this is driving me crazy and I have to think _someone_ out there can help me. I'm looking for a fic I read once, and here's the problem: when I first got into the HP fandom, I read HP fanfic in gross tons. I read so much that, aside from some phenomenally stellar stories, they all bled together in my head into one all-purpose HP fic. This fic I'm looking for got lumped into that category at first, but there was one image in it that I liked at the time but which I did not know _how much_ I liked until I let it percolate in my brain. Now I really want to read it again, but I have no idea what it was called, so if anyone knows the story I'm talking about, tell me what it is! I think it's a post-HBP, Harry and Hermione start sleeping together, it's told mostly from Harry's POV, and the image from the fic that's haunting me: when they're making love Hermione brushes Harry's hair back from his face, and he doesn't know if he likes her doing that or not. That's it, that's what's chanting in the back of my head. I really hope someone knows this story. Thanks!

* * *

The walk to the headmaster's tower was a tensely quiet one. When they reached Dumbledore's office it was to find the past headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts staring down at them from their paintings. Doubtless they had some notion of what had happened, the headmaster portraits always seemed to know things it would seem impossible for works of art to know, and it was clear that an attack on one student by another of such severity was unprecedented.

As soon as they were at their destination and alone (save the paintings), Harry tugged Hermione over to stand in front of him and he openly looked her over for signs of wounds.

Hermione gently pried herself from him. "Harry, I'm fine." She frowned in worry and chewed on her bottom lip. "We could be in real trouble."

Harry huffed irately and began to pace the room. "I won't apologize for stopping him from laying a hand on you, Hermione. I _won't_."

"Oh, Harry, please, stop and think about what you're saying."

"I know what I'm saying," Harry insisted as he paced, still agitated and edgy.

Hermione sat down in one of the large armchairs in Dumbledore's office. She ran her hands over her hair then covered her mouth with her fingers as her mind raced. She was imagining all the horrid ways this meeting could go, and it seemed each was worse than the last. Her stomach felt fit to lurch up through her throat. She watched Harry walk up and down the length of Dumbledore's office, hands restless at his sides. In her mind, she saw him as the jaguar, pacing with tail twitching.

Dumbledore entered his office and Harry strode forward to stand next to Hermione, Harry marginally closer to the headmaster than she. Hermione didn't stand to face Dumbledore for the simple fact she was worried her knees would wobble if she tried.

Dumbledore looked long and hard at his two students, then he sighed deeply and said, "I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that Madam Pomfrey expects there won't be any permanent damage to Mister Malfoy's extremities. She doesn't anticipate any loss of function."

Hermione nodded in relief but Harry crossed his arms defiantly, conspicuously silent as to the good prognosis for Draco Malfoy.

"Now, perhaps one of you might tell me what happened?" Dumbledore paused a beat. "Miss Granger?"

Hermione took a steadying breath. "I was on my way back from the library when Draco took me by surprise. He started heckling me. He was saying these dreadful things, about Harry's cousin and Death Eaters and…" Hermione stopped to glance up at Harry next to her. She wasn't sure how much he'd heard before he came upon them. If he didn't hear some of the awful things Draco said she wasn't sure repeating them to Dumbledore where Harry could hear would help matters any. Harry was mad enough as it was. She decided it was best left unsaid. "I tried to get past Draco to go to the common room and he took my wand and cornered me and that's when…" Hermione trailed, but it was telling in itself. Little doubt anyone in the room was lost for knowing what had happened next.

"He was going to hurt her," Harry stated curtly.

Dumbledore looked embittered a moment then nodded sadly. "Yes, I'm afraid he was."

Harry's eyes flared and his teeth clenched.

"How did you get there when you did?" Hermione asked the headmaster, still able to see him running down the corridor toward them. She'd seen not a soul besides herself, Harry, and Draco, but just the same Dumbledore had shown up when things looked to be taking an irrevocable turn.

"The suit of armor told me something was afoot and I'd best get down there, though I do wish I'd arrived even sooner than I did," Dumbledore answered, as though that answer did not pose questions of its own.

Hermione puzzled over that, but before she could ask any additional questions Dumbledore moved closer to the couple. "There is no excuse for Mister Malfoy's behavior and you can rest assured he would have been severely punished for his actions."

"_Would have been_?!" Harry snapped in disbelief.

"Harry… you and I both know that what happens in this school between you and Mister Malfoy reaches beyond just the two of you. Draco's father has… key influence in some rather unsavory, powerful circles, and believe me when I say that word of his assault, no matter the instigator, would not end well for you."

"You mean because his dad's a Death Eater Draco gets away with whatever he wants," Harry returned.

Dumbledore's voice hardened instantly. "Far from it, Harry."

"What do you intend to do about Draco, sir?" Hermione asked in a much calmer voice.

"At the moment he's in the hospital wing having his injuries treated. I placed him in a catatonic state, and when he's fit to be released I plan to work a memory charm on him to erase any recollection he might have pertaining to that ugliness in the hallway just now." Dumbledore looked seriously toward Harry. "Harry, right now Hogwarts is the safest place for you to be, with Voldemort on the loose and trying to get to you. If Lucius Malfoy heard from his son that you had quite viciously assaulted him, he'd stop at nothing to see you expelled. You'd be put out on the streets, in a loose sense, since you are no longer welcome in your aunt and uncle's home, and a homeless fifteen-year-old boy would be far easier for Voldemort and his followers to capture."

Hermione gasped. That had not even occurred to her, but it made a sick, twisted sense. It made Death Eater sense. "Was that what Draco was _trying_ to do? Why else would he go so far trying to pick a fight?"

Harry turned to look toward Hermione, his expression nearly just as sickened as it was infuriated. "Then why the hell didn't he just come to _me_ and start a row? Why did he have to bring you into it?"

Hermione gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know, maybe hurting me was an added bonus. Maybe he thought it would make his father proud for Draco to strike out against a muggle-born _and_ get you to put yourself in a position to get expelled." Hermione stopped to think a moment. "He may have even been trying to provoke you without outright confronting you; that way he'd be able to say truthfully that you threw the first punch."

"I do not know his intentions," Dumbledore interrupted, "but I feel confident in saying that if it was intentionally undertaken he did not anticipate the response." Dumbledore looked pointedly at Harry then.

"So Draco walks. After what he did, what he _almost_ did…" Harry seethed.

Hermione reached out and touched Harry's elbow. "Harry… we have no choice. Lucius Malfoy can't find out about the fight; his name has enough clout behind it in the ministry for it to end very badly for you."

"It's lamentable and I detest it as much as you, but that is the way of it, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said. "Though I would think there are even more reasons that you would not want Draco to remember that little incident in the corridor other than Harry's potential expulsion."

Harry's rigid stance faltered and Hermione swallowed as their minds turned to the same thought. "No, sir," she whispered then cleared her throat, "we… we don't want Draco to remember a thing."

"Yes, and since I will have to perform a memory charm to insure that he doesn't, it also means I cannot punish him if he does not remember doing wrong." Dumbledore took out his wand, transfigured a table into a couch so he could sit opposite Hermione as though the office were a formal sitting room, and he regarded the two teens closely. "Now, I rather think it's time I'm brought into the loop of this animagus business."

Harry and Hermione looked at one another, fraught with worry at the repercussions but both aware there would be no possibility of avoiding them. Not unless they thought to try their hands at a memory charm on Dumbledore, which would have been the very definition of foolhardy and stupid in one convenient bundle.

Harry sat down on the arm of the chair Hermione occupied while Hermione curled her hands in her lap like a nervous little girl being called to the mat by her father.

"What do you want to know?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Hmm… well, the most common question answered itself in your case, Harry; I saw for myself that your animagus form is a panther." Dumbledore turned his eyes to Hermione. "And what would yours be, Miss Granger?"

Hermione wouldn't even ask how Dumbledore knew so confidently that she was an animagus too, and that it wasn't just Harry. "I'm… I'm a lioness, sir."

Dumbledore looked surprised, and for a man like Dumbledore that was something. "Really?"

"Is that… unexpected?" Harry asked, curious about Dumbledore's reaction.

Dumbledore pondered that a moment. "You might say it's more a case of… statistical improbability. The likelihood that you would both be creatures of such similar nature… it is a bit… unforeseen. I would not have anticipated such a close match in animagus forms." Dumbledore paused to look at them both before his eyes rested at greater length on Hermione. "I can see you've noticed the same unlikelihood in that as I have, Miss Granger."

Hermione nodded while she saw Harry glance at her from the corner of her eye. "I knew it was… a rare occurrence that Harry and I would both undertake becoming animagi and then for us to both turn into big cats. I think… I'm not certain, but I've thought it might have something to do with the tokening process."

"Oh? How so?"

"We tokened off each other."

Dumbledore's casual posture slowly gave way to much greater acuity of focus as he sat up a little straighter in his seat. Hermione felt a thrill of investigative fervor, despite the dressing down this might be, to see she had caused Dumbledore to sit up and take interest. It reignited her own curiosity about the issue of their strikingly similar animagus forms. She continued, "Harry took a lock of my hair and I took a lock of his. It's the only thing that I can think of that may have influenced our animal forms to so closely resemble one another."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and his eyes lost focus as he mulled that over. "Possibly… that is a fascinating speculation in any case. I must confess that I've never heard of that happening before in animagus magic."

"Never?" Harry parroted, clearly finding it strange that something that had happened so naturally for him and Hermione would be so unheard of in the wizarding world. Hermione thought, in passing, that Harry should have been accustomed to defying conventional magic by now.

"The animagus process is a very personal event for a witch or wizard, Harry," Dumbledore said. "It may be embarked upon in pairs or groups, but ultimately it is a solitary process. It's an inward-focused journey, so to have that imbedded magic within a witch or wizard reach out to another during that process… well, as I said, I've never heard of it if happening before."

Harry looked at Hermione, his expression bewildered. He'd never stopped to find it at all strange that he and Hermione would have similar forms. It was as natural as the jaguar to him, unquestioned and right.

"I will take a guess here and say that you two have only been able to become panther and lioness since the early part of this term," Dumbledore said.

"Yes, sir." A pause. "How did you know?"

"The marked change in your personalities since the start of this term was a very significant clue," the headmaster said with a wry smile and twinkle in his eye.

Harry blinked. "You noticed our personalities change?"

Dumbledore nodded. "I was not the only one among your elders to note the difference. Many of your professors have come to me remarking on your and Miss Granger's greater confidence." Dumbledore stopped and smirked. "Well, Professor Snape called it 'heightened arrogance', but it spoke to the same observation of a change in personality."

Hermione shook her head in wonder. "We're still trying to grip the idea that we behave differently because of the cats."

"Well, I should think Harry, before the panther, would not have asked why I would not let him kill Mister Malfoy."

Harry looked contrite. "Uh, er… well, no, probably wouldn't have."

"I'll admit that for a time I thought the shift in your dispositions was a result of your budding romantic relationship. That is a transfiguring event in and of itself. When a number of your professors began to note the change and brought it up with me over tea I had to consider it was more than the magic of love at work."

Hermione felt her cheeks color and she glanced fleetingly at Harry. He was studying Dumbledore speculatively, silent but receptive, which was leagues better than his mood only an hour ago when she would have sooner expected him to attack Dumbledore than pay attention to what he said.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry and I… we… we were the cats before we were together as a couple. We didn't begin dating until halfway through the first term."

"Is that so? Hmm… it would seem my gut for these matters must be colicking… I was convinced you and young Harry had advanced beyond the boundaries of mere friendship to embark upon a relationship with one another over the summer."

Harry smirked. "You and everyone else, sir."

"We were a bit… thick in that regard," Hermione confessed into her lap, trying not to smile at the memory.

"I see." Dumbledore looked between Harry and Hermione sitting together on the same chair, side by side. "Well, seems it's been all sorted now, or near enough as makes no matter to our topic of the hour.

"I would like to know how long you two were working on becoming animagi." Dumbledore cocked his head fractionally. "Had I to speculate, I would suspect that the whole matter with Sirius Black two years ago would have awakened a certain interest in the animagus process. Interest in his godfather for Harry, and feasibly the love of the challenge for you, Miss Granger, but that does leave the problem that the Triwizard Tournament last year would have provided little time for you two to work toward your first transformation. Is it possible that this little endeavor of yours went back as far as your second or first year? Tremendously ambitious for students so young."

"Actually, Headmaster," Hermione said, "we didn't begin to work on becoming animagi until this past summer."

Dumbledore's mild manner fled his face by degrees until he was looking at Hermione with all the sharpness of his great wisdom and power. He seemed to be gauging her honesty with a mere look, piercing and direct as if to cut through to the heart of the matter with a glance. Hermione didn't waver under his seeking look, but she was perplexed by the sudden acuity in Dumbledore's gaze.

Finally, the headmaster found what he'd sought in her eyes, because he broke to look toward Harry. When he was met with similar unflinching openness in the young wizard, Dumbledore stood and paced before his couch a few steps. "You mean to say that you and Harry mastered becoming animagi within a single year? Technically, less than that?"

"Yes, sir."

Dumbledore didn't speak and paced a few more steps.

"What's wrong with that?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore turned to Harry and regarded him seriously. "Harry, surely you must have some appreciation for what an astounding feat that is."

Harry turned modest and a bit bashful. "Well, I know it's supposed to be hard, but I assumed how hard depended on the wizard or witch doing it, too."

"It does, to be sure, but still, to succeed in less than a year…" Dumbledore shook his head in private awe. "That is quite extraordinary." The portraits on the wall were bobbing their heads in agreement. Dumbledore was still watching Harry, some new level of respect for the innate power within Harry evident in his eyes, then the headmaster looked to Hermione. There was no less admiration for her similar success in such a taxing and notoriously difficult endeavor, but when he glanced at Hermione there was a manner of question in his eyes as well. He seemed to silently ask how she could not have impressed upon Harry just how fantastic their accomplishment was.

Hermione tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I can't really explain how I managed in such a short time frame, I was sure it would take me years if I ever managed at all, but with Harry… everything in the animagus process just _came_ to him. He just took to it from the start."

Harry frowned faintly. "Not all that more than you took to it."

Hermione looked up impatiently at her fiancé. "Honestly, Harry, you were a natural at it from the first token. Even now you can do things with your animagus form that I can never hope to do."

Harry scowled silently as Dumbledore turned to considering them both. "What sort of things do you mean, Miss Granger?"

"Touching the jaguar, sir." Hermione paused and her face screwed as she tried to think of how to word it best. "Harry can… tap into the gifts and abilities of the jaguar without turning into the jaguar. He can hear like the jaguar and see like the jaguar without being the jaguar."

The headmaster did something Hermione never thought to see the brilliant, world-wise wizard do… his jaw dropped. Not gapingly wide, not like a classmate might have, but his lips parted without a word issuing forth. Hermione's every nerve ending began to tingle. She had never read of someone borrowing from their animal from the way Harry did in all her research on animagi, but she had assumed it was an oversight in the literature, as the books on the subject were hardly exhaustive. But the look on Dumbledore's face… maybe the lack of any mention of such an ability _wasn't_ an oversight in by the writers of all those books she'd read.

Harry saw Dumbledore's expression, too, and he gave a half-wince, half-smile as he offered a bit wryly, "Guess not many people can do that?"

Dumbledore closed his mouth and turned his eyes slowly to Harry. "Harry… _no one_ can do that."

"No one?" Harry repeated, dubious but at the same time almost forced to believe it from the way Dumbledore was reacting to the revelation.

The headmaster shook his head.

"Well… surely I can't be the _only_ one," Harry protested weakly, but Hermione touched his arm and favored him with a supportive smile, because she could easily believe that it was an ability unique to Harry Potter. She knew all too well that Harry tended to underestimate his power as a wizard.

Dumbledore sat down again on the couch across from the two young adults, this time near the edge and he leaned toward Harry. "Tell me how you 'touch the jaguar' I believe you called it?" The gleam in Dumbledore was eager and immensely curious. Hermione could almost imagine Dumbledore as a student listening eagerly to a professor deemed a master in their subject.

Harry nodded, then his face twisted as he searched for a way to describe it adequately. "I don't know _how_ I do it, I just _do_. I'll want to see better in the dark or hear better and I just… reach inside me for the jaguar. I… brush against it." Harry scowled in the effort to put his amorphous talent to words. "Almost like the jaguar's sleeping inside me, but it's not really asleep, but I can touch it and it knows when I want its eyes or its ears and it loans them to me without taking over me."

"You're conscious of your animagus form within you when you are in human form?"

That, at least, had an easy answer. "I'm _always_ conscious of it." Harry stopped, puzzled, and glanced toward Hermione hesitantly when a question struck him. "You mean… you're not?"

Hermione shook her head with a faint smile; it was almost endearing to plainly see how hard it was for Harry to think of the experience for someone else being fundamentally less than how _he_ experienced it. But from the first days endowed with their new ability to become cats, Hermione knew it was different for Harry than for her. "I know, intellectually, that the lioness is there, but I don't _feel_ her like you feel the jaguar."

For a second confusion flickered over Harry's face as he tried to imagine it the way she described her awareness of her lioness.

"Harry," Dumbledore said, redirecting Harry's attention back to the headmaster, "how difficult is it for you to borrow these senses from your animagus form while you maintain human shape?"

"It's not. Sometimes I do it without realizing I'm doing it."

Dumbledore lifted his eyebrows. "Astounding… do you think you could demonstrate this ability for me?"

Harry gave an acquiescent half-nod then paused abruptly and looked over his shoulder toward the back of Dumbledore's office. Hermione twisted to follow his suddenly concerned look and she saw Fawkes on his perch near the far wall. She understood at once what had given Harry pause. When both teenagers turned their heads to look again toward their headmaster Dumbledore looked truly baffled by their sudden reticence and interest in his bird.

"Umm," Harry stammered, "we've noticed that animals sense when I'm touching the jaguar. I'm just not sure how Fawkes will take to it."

"Really? Animals pick up on that, do they?" Dumbledore asked in fascination.

Harry nodded, stopped, then cant his head in sudden distraction. "Well, actually, come to think on it, Hermione can tell when I'm touching the jaguar, too."

When Dumbledore looked to Hermione she nodded. "It's… hard to explain. Maybe it's just that I know Harry so well that I'd notice the difference, but there is one. There's this… aura about him. He just _feels_ different. Like suddenly you're standing in the presence of greatness."

Harry ducked his head and barely blushed, but Hermione could not explain it any other way.

"Well, I think Fawkes will be fine for the duration of a simple demonstration. Please, Harry," Dumbledore gestured to Harry to proceed.

The headmaster acted as though he expected some kind of production or lengthy process to follow. It made the actual shift itself seem silly in comparison to the build up it was given. Hermione watched as Harry sat on the chair's arm beside her, as casual as though they were hanging out in the common room with Ron and Ginny, not a hint of discernable change in him to watch him, but Hermione _knew_ the moment Harry was part jaguar. She could _feel_ his energy change from common magic to phenomenally powerful. Behind them, Fawkes squawked suddenly in surprise and flapped his wings.

Then the sense of immense strength of presence slipped, the phoenix quieted, and regular Harry gave a sheepish shrug.

Dumbledore was clearly impressed. "That is a truly amazing talent, Harry. I see now what Miss Granger meant when she spoke of your 'presence' changing. When did you discover you could do that, if I may be so bold?"

"Pretty soon after the first change. I was doing it unintentionally before I figured out that it was something I could control and do at will."

"And sometimes not at will," Hermione provided, and when Harry looked over at her she said softly, "the zoo, Harry."

"The zoo?" Dumbledore queried.

"Uh, yeah… during Christmas holiday I went to the London Zoo with Hermione's father and at the lion exhibit I… well, it was almost a scene, to be honest. The lions could tell something was like them about me I guess, and I got a little too focused on their reaction to me. When I snapped out of it I realized the jaguar was… awake, for lack of a better term. I hadn't even noticed it coming over me."

Dumbledore merely stared at Harry.

Hermione felt strangely proud of Harry right then, as if his accomplishment was her own. "I've come to believe it's much more of a partnership with Harry and the jaguar within him than is the case for other animagi, myself included. After watching Harry and the way he relates to his animagus form and how they blend together so seamlessly it's hard not to think that _that_ is how true animagi were meant to be. Natural and unspeakably beautiful."

"Hermione," Harry groaned, fairly embarrassed.

Dumbledore chuckled. "I would have to say I agree with Miss Granger, Harry." Dumbledore ran his fingers absently through his white beard and he mused aloud, "After all the impossible feats you have accomplished since you were one, I don't think there is a witch or wizard today who would argue how magically gifted you are, and I would generally consider myself among the most generous of those who allow that you will one day be one of the most powerful wizards our world has ever seen… but even still you manage to surprise me, Harry."

Harry clearly didn't know what to say to that, as he thought considerably less of himself than his present company did, and in his uncertainty he looked to Hermione. She smiled gently at him and reached out to touch his hand. She knew the same things Dumbledore did, that Harry was set to become a truly great man and an even greater wizard, but she'd learned the futility in trying to tell Harry so. Instead, she just believed it.

Dumbledore broke the moment when he stood from his couch, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Something strikes me in all of this," he muttered, then left Harry and Hermione to go to his fireplace. The two teenagers watched, confused, as Dumbledore threw a pinch of floo powder into the flames to color them from orange to green.

A few moments later, Kimmy burst from the hearth wearing tiger-striped boxers and matching suspenders. "Master Albus? You called for Kimmy?"

"Yes, I did. Kimmy… Miss Granger and young Harry here have just informed me of their recently earned status as bona fide animagi. The timing of this accomplishment strikes me, though. Miss Granger says that she and Harry did not set out to learn how to master the art of animagus transformation until this last summer… when it just so happens that you were tasked with watching over them."

Kimmy's merry expression fell.

"Now, doesn't that seem terribly auspicious? You wouldn't have played a part in all of this, would you?"

"Well…" Kimmy said awkwardly and scuffed the floor with her bare toes, but Hermione stood then and interceded on the house elf's behalf before Kimmy could try to speak in her own defense.

"Sir… Kimmy didn't do anything wrong. I talked her into helping us; I told her that Harry and I wanted to become animagi to help him defend against Voldemort. You told her to do everything in her power to safeguard Harry… I worded it so that helping us to become animagi fell within your orders. Don't be mad at her; if anyone, be mad at me."

Dumbledore looked toward Hermione, then down at Kimmy. "You helped them, Kimmy?"

Kimmy nodded.

"_Sir_!" Hermione said desperately.

"Oh, don't fear, Miss Granger, I would not dream of punishing Kimmy, not that it would be within my rights to do so should I wish to. Which I don't. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity." Dumbledore knelt beside the house elf and regarded her with an affectionate smile. "Well, Kimmy, it would seem you've abetted in yet another youthful fancy."

Kimmy began to smile.

Dumbledore stood and turned to face Harry and Hermione once more. "I suppose it's a mere formality to ask if you two are rogue animagi."

Hermione glanced back at Harry, who stood from the chair and moved to stand beside her. Hermione looked back at Dumbledore and gave a heavy nod. "We're rogue, sir. We… we truly did choose to become animagi because there was the possibility it could prove useful in the fight against Voldemort. It offered an advantage… an advantage that might easily be lost if Voldemort was able to learn what our animagus forms are."

Dumbledore nodded. "In the current times, that makes the most imminent sense, regardless of its legality." Dumbledore pondered that a moment longer and said, "Under that logic, I see no recourse but to keep this discovery to myself."

Hermione was cautiously optimistic. "You won't turn us in to the ministry for being rogues?"

"All things considered, that would hardly be in Harry's best interests, and you can rest assured I have only my students' best interests at heart. It's regrettable that I won't be able to discuss Harry's unusual talents with experts in the field, but I will cope with the disappointment.

"Now then, what names have you taken for yourselves?"

Hermione blinked and looked in confusion to Harry. His expression mirrored her own. "Names, sir?"

"Animagus names," Dumbledore returned with a nod. "Surely you are familiar with the practice of an animagus form having a name of its own? Of course, it's not a _requirement_, but I've always found it a very quaint and delightful custom." Dumbledore sniffed and commented as an aside, "Though I was never especially fond of DuffGruff."

Hermione frowned, for the time being dismissing Dumbledore's last remark. "Uh… we don't have animagus names, sir. We… honestly, it never occurred to us."

"Well then, in that case, may I make a suggestion?" At Hermione and Harry's nods, Dumbledore continued, "It is, of course, up to you, but as she was accomplice to this from the start, I would suggest letting Kimmy do the honors."

Kimmy brightened immediately and her eyes lit up with excitement.

Hermione, of no particular mind on the matter, turned to look at Harry. He gave a relenting shrug, still a bit thrown by the turn in conversation, and Hermione answered, "All right, Kimmy, you can choose our animagus names if you'd like."

Kimmy clapped her hands enthusiastically and bounced up and down. "Oh! Kimmy is feeling so very honored!" She scurried over to Harry and Hermione and looked up at them critically, like an artist inspecting two incomplete sculptures. She narrowed her eyes and clasped her hands behind her back as she walked in a circle around the couple. Harry and Hermione watched the elf wordlessly, casting each other questioningly looks.

After a circuit around them Kimmy backed off, stood a few paces away with weight borne primarily on one foot, and tapped her forefinger against her chin, her face scrunched in intense contemplation.

After a time, the little house elf hurried up to Hermione and seemed to size up her. Then, with a decisive nod, Kimmy said, "Miss Hermione is being Sagehunter."

Hermione turned the name over in her head a few times. "Sagehunter."

Kimmy nodded. "Sage being the knowledge and Miss Hermione its seeker."

"Sagehunter," Hermione tried the name again, letting it rattle around in her skull and coil over her palate. She found herself growing fond of its intonation and meaning, the way it rolled off her tongue and stood out in her head. She imagined a lion, her lioness with the boyish mane, and called it by name. Sagehunter. It fit well.

"I like it," Harry offered at her side.

Hermione nodded at last. "I do, too. Sagehunter. It's a great name, Kimmy. Thank you."

Kimmy bounced on the balls of her feet. Then she turned her undivided attention to Harry. She squinted up at him, brow furrowed and wrinkled like a bulldog, and she paced a bit between the teens and where Dumbledore stood as she searched her brain for a good name.

With a grunt and a curt nod to herself once she'd made up her mind, Kimmy turned swiftly back to Harry and stood with hands on her hips. "Mister Harry Potter is Knight."

"Knight? Just… Knight?"

Kimmy nodded. "It is being simple."

Hermione smiled. "Oh, it's perfect!"

"Simple? Gee, thanks," Harry mumbled.

Hermione giggled. "No, Harry, it really fits you. Simply gallant, simply knightly."

"I didn't think of it that way," Harry said. He looked at Hermione, who was enamored of the name already to take from the expression on her face. That won him the rest of the way that he himself was still uncertain. He smiled considerately at the house elf who had dubbed them. "It's wonderful, Kimmy. Knight will definitely do."

Kimmy beamed proudly.

"I could not have chosen better myself," Dumbledore said. The headmaster crossed to his desk, propped his bum on the edge, and he sighed heavily, his mood shifting once again. "Harry… I trust I need not tell you that I cannot permit you to loose Knight in the school's halls again, not against fellow students."

Harry's expression darkened. "I won't allow Hermione to be hurt," he said in final, uncompromising words.

"I don't ask you to, Harry, but for several reasons you need to keep Knight out of your conflicts with your classmates." To Harry's displeased glower, Dumbledore said, "You've gained a valuable weapon in any battle you may fight against Voldemort with your animagus capabilities, that is beyond contestation, but keep in mind that _you are a weapon_. As Knight, you are infinitely dangerous. And as headmaster, taking that new danger you can pose into consideration, I am now expected to protect the other students from you."

"Sir…" Harry protested.

"You could very easily have killed Mister Malfoy today, Harry. That is not something to take lightly."

"But he—"

"Attacked Miss Granger, I know." Dumbledore paused. "But Miss Granger, with a very similar beast at her command, did not unleash that animal against Mister Malfoy despite his actions."

Harry pursed his lips bitterly at that point. "I… I just… I couldn't let him hurt her."

"Your devotion to her is admirable, Harry, and truthfully I predict controlling this beast of yours will only really be an issue where it concerns Miss Granger."

Hermione gave Dumbledore a querulous look at that.

The headmaster almost smiled. "Animal psychology, my dear Miss Granger. Knight will naturally view you as his mate in an animal's simple terms, and it is only natural that he be fiercely protective of you."

"Not just Knight," Harry grumbled under his breath. Hermione looked quickly to Harry and saw the bare, bald earnestness in his face. And he did not speak a word against Dumbledore's supposition that she would be the only reason Harry might lose control of Knight.

"No," Dumbledore conceded gently, "not just Knight. But any threat from another student to Hermione or Sagehunter must be met by Harry. Knight is too deadly to let him deal with your classmates, Harry, I trust you can see that after what happened today.

"Now that you and Miss Granger have taken on the mantle of animagus status, you also shoulder the responsibility that comes with those animal forms that you adopt. It is more difficult for some than others. As DuffGruff I had only to be mindful not to eat the garden, but Knight and Sagehunter are far more burdensome animals. You must both command over them, for any lives they take will be on your hands. Be careful that they are lives you can live with taking."

Hermione nodded gravely. A quick glance at Harry showed unhappy but grudging surrender in his expression. "We'll be careful, sir."

"What about Malfoy?" Harry asked, though he seemed rather loathe to express any concern for the Slytherin's predicament in any way, shape, or form.

"I'll deal with Mister Malfoy. I'll tend to the past, anyway. As to the future, if he does have some scheme to provoke you, Harry, be very cautious that you don't let him rile Knight again. I realize it may be unbearably hard for you to do should Miss Granger come under attack as she did today, but you _must_ rule over the beast inside you, for there will be all too little I can do to help you if you kill someone. Even less than little I might do if you kill Draco Malfoy."

Harry nodded solemnly.

"What about Malfoy's arms? How will you explain the claw marks to him when he wakes?" Hermione asked.

"Ah, yes, that is a tricky pickle, but I'll come up with something to tell him for how he sustained his injuries. Perhaps I will tell him he was idling too near to the forest and was attacked by a feral hippogriff. After the incident with Buckbeak I would think he'll be all too easy to convince of such an animal's innate viciousness, though we know better. An unexpected attack could conceivably explain his missing memories as well, should he have been knocked unconscious in the hippogriff attack, for instance."

It was rough, but Hermione had faith Dumbledore could spin it into a suitably believably story.

"Hagrid will no doubt be most unhappy with his beloved hippogriffs being painted the villains once again," Dumbledore commented, "but if he knew the cause it served I believe he'd find it in his heart to give us his blessing in convincing Malfoy he was mauled by a hippogriff as opposed to the truth of how he was wounded."

Dumbledore stood from his desk and studied his two students a moment. He frowned dourly a moment before he said, "There can be no doubt that Mister Malfoy acted inappropriately this afternoon when he accosted Miss Granger. Under any other circumstances, he would be stringently punished for his actions. However, since it will be necessary to erase all memory he has of the incident, I cannot very well hand out that due punishment for a wrong he will not remember doing." To Harry and Hermione's shared look of distaste, Dumbledore hurriedly said, "I find no more pleasure in that detail than you, but for our purposes it is the lesser of evils, and that does seem to be the hallmark of all we do these days." The headmaster turned his eyes to Harry. "Under normal circumstances, you would be severely punished for what you did. And yes, I know, Mister Malfoy started it, but it was Mister Malfoy who ended up nearly losing his life. Violence of that nature cannot be permitted.

"But that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. How to discipline two parties, both guilty, when one is rendered incapable of being punished? Because I will be forced to take no disciplinary action against Mister Malfoy, I shall allow you to leave with a warning this time, Harry. Take that as your concession in lieu of seeing Mister Malfoy pay properly for his actions.

"It seems I still have quite a bit of work to do tying up the loose ends of this most unfortunate day for young Mister Malfoy. But that is my business. You two are free to go."

Hermione took Harry's hand and was already tugging him toward the office door before Dumbledore could change his mind and decide to punish Harry for attacking Draco. She'd love to see Draco punished for what he did, and for what he almost did, but she'd readily trade Harry's evasion of punishment for it. "Come on, Harry, let's go."

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes a moment then relented and turned to follow Hermione out of the headmaster's office.


	58. Chapter 58

A/N: Just a quick thanks to everyone who told me the name of that fic I was looking for (it was Harry Potter and the Infernal Plan). Now it can stop driving me crazy ;)

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When Harry and Hermione climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room, they found Ron and Ginny sitting at a table with a wizard chess board in front of them, both still wearing Quidditch gear complete with brooms leaning against the wall beside them. At the sound of the fat lady letting someone into the room, both Weasleys looked up.

"Where the hell you'd go, mate?" Ron asked at once when he saw it was they who had arrived. While Harry and Hermione, toting Hermione's books that they'd recovered from the corridor floor on their way back to their house tower, made for the empty table space beside their friends to dump their armloads, Ron resumed talking. "You said you had to come in to take a piss, and that was almost two hours ago. What bloody kept you?"

Harry, unburdened of his share of the library books, sucked in a breath and cut a heavy look at Hermione. He did not relish this explanation. From the look she returned to him, she wasn't particularly thrilled with the prospect of going into the whole mess so soon after extricating themselves from it, either.

Ron interpreted their looks toward one another quite differently. "Oh, if you stole back here to snog, _please_, don't tell me. Just say you should have passed on the mince pie last night at dinner and I'll sleep better."

Ginny smacked her brother on the arm. "Really, Ron, don't be such a git."

Ron scowled at his younger sister. "Hey, I think I'm being a right good sport about all this. Haven't made a ruckus about Hermione creeping into our room nights to sneak into Harry's bed, have I?"

"You're a real saint," Ginny quipped, but turned her attention next to Harry and Hermione. "Really, if you two just wanted some time alone you could have said so and we'd have found something to do on our own to give you space. No need to be crafty about it."

As Ron grumbled something about being under-appreciated, Hermione sat down next to Ginny. "Thanks, Ginny, but that's not what had us tied up. We were in Dumbledore's office."

Ron sent a confused look up at Harry, who had remained standing with arms folded over his chest. "Dumbledore's office? What for?"

"For a scolding."

Ginny's eyes widened. "A scolding? Why? What happened?"

"I almost killed Malfoy."

Ron rolled his eyes understandingly… in the sense that he completely misunderstood Harry's meaning. "Yeah, can't count the times I'd like to murder the little bastard myself. You two had a row then, did you? Expect a teacher caught you dueling in the halls or something. But hey, you're here instead of sitting in detention, so it must have been Malfoy's fault and Dumbledore must have seen that, right?"

Hermione cast her eyes upward in a momentary 'heaven help me' look. "No, Ron. Malfoy is not in detention. He's in the hospital wing."

"Whoa!" Ron ejaculated, equally stunned and impressed, while Ginny covered her mouth for a second's span at the news.

"What did you do to him, Harry?"

"I told you, I almost killed him. Literally."

Ginny looked over at Hermione, who could offer only a nod in verification.

"_Shite_! Well, come on, sit down and tell me what happened." Ron gestured emphatically to the bench space beside him, still agog but painfully curious to hear about this nearly mortal row between Harry and his childhood school enemy since first year.

Before budging an inch to take the seat next to Ron, Harry tensed and his eyes flicked and came to rest on Ginny. He stood and stared, measuring and close-lipped. Ginny frowned at his expression then sat back when she realized Harry was hesitating to recount the story because she would hear it. The youngest Weasley did not take kindly to the slight. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, stubbornly planting herself. "Oh, no, I don't think so. I want to hear what happened, too."

Ron, cottoning to the fact that Harry was reluctant to speak in front of Ginny, turned to his sister. "Shove off, Ginny… go write a disgusting letter to Seamus or something."

"No," Ginny retorted and looked obstinately between Harry and Hermione. She liked their stonewall expressions not at all. "Come on, why can't you tell me?" Seeking support, she turned naturally to Hermione seated beside her, face imploring the older girl to come to her aid.

Hermione avoided Ginny's eyes in favor of looking up at Harry.

He was looking questioningly at Hermione, seeking guidance as surely as Ginny sought a champion. Hermione shrugged. "It's up to you, Harry. I'm fine with her knowing."

After a moment weighing his choices, Harry relented. "All right, then, you can stay, but you have to promise you won't tell anyone what you're about to hear," Harry said to Ginny.

"I promise."

Harry sighed and at last dropped down to the bench space offered him. Ron and Ginny were watching him raptly; Hermione gave him an encouraging half-smile when he glanced her way.

"Well," he began, "I _did_ come in to use the loo, like I said, then I… well, I was just curious what Hermione was up to. We'd been outside having fun for a long time, and I suppose I wanted to make sure that she wasn't having a terrible time cooped up in here all by herself. I knew she'd most likely be in the library, so I thought I'd just drop in on her and see what she was doing.

"I was walking down the corridor toward the library when I heard Malfoy talking, sounded like to himself because I didn't hear anyone else so I hardly paid attention at first, then I came around the corner and saw that he'd cornered Hermione in the hall."

Ron's face darkened visibly and fire glinted in Ginny's eyes, but neither spoke.

"Malfoy had her backed up against the wall and he was aiming a wand at her, and I just… lost it."

"What'd you do?" Ron asked.

Harry winced. "I… changed."

Ron nodded for Harry to continue. When Harry didn't, Ron thought on it a bit. Ginny was trying fervently to decipher the remark, but it was Ron who had the information to hit upon the meaning behind Harry's words. When he did, his eyes took on the likeness of saucers and his jaw dropped. "Bloody hell!"

"What? What?" Ginny looked between those at the table with her, confused.

Hermione chewed for a second on her bottom lip before she gave the room another cursory look to make sure it was empty but for them. They'd seen no one come in, but prudence still made her check. When Hermione was confident there would be no one unwanted who would hear what she was going to say, she shifted on the bench to directly face Ginny. Ginny was on the razor's edge, primed to hang on every word Hermione said.

"Now, you _mustn't_ tell _anyone_, Ginny," Hermione insisted.

"You know I won't, Hermione. I'd never betray my friends."

"Well, you see…" Hermione took a breath and figured it was best to just have out with it. "Harry and I are animagi."

Ginny gaped for a moment. "You're…" she turned it over a few times as her eyes grew increasingly wider. "_Really_?"

"Yeah, they are," Ron nodded, "It's true; I've seen them."

"Since when?"

"Just the start of this term," Hermione answered.

"Wicked," Ginny mumbled, eliciting a brief smirk from Hermione despite the situation. Ginny looked up again at Hermione then over at Harry. "What animals are you?"

"I'm a black jaguar. Hermione is a lioness."

"Wow." Ginny shook her head. "That's all I can think to say. Wow. And maybe another wicked for good measure." Ginny's expression went from awed to shocked when the full implications of that confession connected with the earlier topic of Draco Malfoy. "Wait, so you… Harry, you _changed_ into the black jaguar and _attacked_ Malfoy?"

"Let the man tell it, Ginny," Ron groused, but Harry only gave an affirmative nod to Ginny's question. "Yeah, I did. I was blind mad. All I could think was that Malfoy was trying to hurt her. I kind of lost control of Knight."

"Hold on, I'm lost… what does nighttime have to do with this?" Ron asked.

"No, not 'night'. Knight's the name for when I'm the jaguar. Like my dad was Prongs and Sirius is Padfoot. I'm Knight."

"Oh…" Ron looked puzzled, as though to ask how long Harry had had a pseudonym when in animal form, then shrugged and apparently decided it wasn't important. "All right then."

Harry gave a lackadaisical shrug and crooked smirk. "It's a new thing."

"So what happened then?"

"I attacked Malfoy."

Ginny was sitting quietly and digesting all the new information at high speed. "It's a wonder you didn't kill him, Harry," she remarked soberly. She was looking at him oddly, as though trying to picture this powerful animal that he became.

"I would have, but Dumbledore stopped me."

Ron gulped. "Oh, crap… Dumbledore saw you… saw Knight?"

Hermione took up the recount there. "Yes. Just after Knight tackled Malfoy to the floor, Dumbledore came charging up. He used magic to cast Knight off of Malfoy and put a body bind on him so he couldn't finish what he started, the whole mauling Draco to pieces business, that is. Dumbledore took Draco to the hospital wing while I stayed behind with Knight. When Draco had been put in Madam Pomfrey's care, Dumbledore came back, released Knight from the body bind, then it was to the headmaster's office for a long talk."

"Oh, that can't have gone well… are you two in trouble for being rogue animagi?" Ron asked uneasily.

Harry frowned and shook his head, as though still puzzled himself how it was that that was not the case. "No, actually… Dumbledore already knew we were animagi."

"You told him?" Ginny asked. Something in her tone seemed to suggest that, while she might forgive Ron being in on the secret (considering how close the three had always been), she couldn't help but feel a little snubbed if Dumbledore had been privy to the same secret while she'd been kept in the dark.

"No," Hermione replied, "we didn't, but… well, he knew just the same. I suppose we were silly to think we could hide something like that from him in the first place, as smart and powerful as he is."

"Suppose not," Ron mumbled in a distracted manner.

"He said he wouldn't turn us in for being rogues. He said, all things considered, it would do more harm than good to let on to anyone what he knew about us being animagi," Hermione said.

Ron nodded, still preoccupied with something catching in his thoughts, then he scowled mightily. "But fine if Dumbledore knows, you're still in big trouble, Harry. _Malfoy_ saw you, er, Knight. Little chance he's going to think some random, big fuck-off panther with a scar exactly like yours was just passing by and decided to pop into Hogwarts for a walk-about."

Ginny gasped. "_Merlin_! Ron's right! That little ferret will go running straight to his father about what happened. He'll tell his dad all about Knight and you'll be in for it, Harry. He's had it out for you since, well, probably since you stopped You Know Who when you were one year old. If you hurt Draco as badly as you say…"

"Just how bad was it?" Ron interjected. "I mean, you said you 'almost killed him', but any chance that's a bit of an exaggeration? Lucius Malfoy will probably try to have you thrown in Azkaban in any case, but… couldn't have been _that_ bad, right?" Ron asked hopefully, fishing for the possibility that his friends weren't in as deep as it would seem at first glance.

Harry shared a look with Hermione then shook his head. "No, I wasn't exaggerating. If Dumbledore had shown up any later than he had, Malfoy would be dead; I'm certain of that."

"As it was," Hermione took up with saying, "Knight only had the opportunity to tear up Malfoy's arms with his claws, though Madam Pomfrey seems to believe she can mend him well enough to avoid him suffering permanent damage or loss of function in his arms."

Ron and Ginny's eyes were wide as Hermione detailed Draco's injuries.

"But as far as him ratting me out to his father," Harry picked up from Hermione's last words, "Dumbledore's taking care of it.

"When he broke us up in the hallway he also put Malfoy into some kind of coma. When he brings him out of it Dumbledore's going to perform a memory charm on Malfoy to make him believe he was attacked by a feral hippogriff."

Ginny frowned. "You know, there aren't a lot of wild hippogriffs about Hogwarts grounds… won't that look a bit dodgy?"

"Malfoy still thinks Buckbeak is around and on the loose after attacking him during third year then escaping execution," Hermione pointed out. "Malfoy was convinced of Buckbeak's desire to see him ripped to pieces, like all animals are going to be as vengeful as he himself is. When Malfoy's told that he was attacked by a hippogriff, chances are he'll probably assume it was _Buckbeak_ that did it. No doubt he'll imagine Buckbeak's still out for his blood. That's the kind of rubbish a twisted, vindictive git like Malfoy _would_ think."

"All the better if he thinks so, then," Harry decided. "Buckbeak's far from here, and Malfoy wants to see him killed anyway, so it doesn't really change anything."

"Here's to hoping he blames Buckbeak, then," Ron said in agreement. The redhead rubbed at the back of his neck and his expression screwed as he tried to put everything Harry and Hermione had said in its proper perspective. He finally glanced back up at Harry. "So are you in trouble for what you did to Malfoy?"

"Amazingly, no," Harry answered.

"Unbelievable, only Harry Potter," Ron muttered with a wry smirk and shake of his head. "So how'd you manage to get off without so much as lines when you go and nearly rip the arms off old ferret-boy?"

Hermione was the one to answer. "It was a concession on Dumbledore's part. Because he'll have to wipe Malfoy's memory of the attack, he obviously can't punish him for accosting me in the corridor."

"Oh, damn, he gets away with it?!" Ron groused.

"Don't complain, it's worth it. He let Harry off with nothing sterner than a warning." Hermione considered Ron and Ginny's faces and added, "It's _well_ worth it. Harry could have been in serious trouble for such a vicious attack on a fellow student. He could have been _expelled_. They might have even brought the Ministry of Magic into the whole fiasco."

"Yeah, I know, for the best, I get it, but I'm still not happy about that rotten bastard getting away with cornering you like that."

"Neither am I," Harry added, his tone low and a shade hostile.

"Neither of you better do anything stupid and undo all that Dumbledore did to sort this mess. I _can_ take care of myself, you know," Hermione stated peevishly.

"Hmph. Sounds to me like you were in a real tight spot today before Har-Knight rescued you," Ron mumbled.

Hermione's nostrils flared and she leveled a venomous look at Ron. "I wasn't expecting Malfoy to take it that far. You know him, mean-spirited and rotten to the core but in the end a lot of talk with no bite. He hasn't the courage to be evil. Real milk-snake, that particular Slytherin."

"He wasn't going to just leave it at talk this time, Hermione," Harry said sternly as he looked at her, his concern just offsetting what would have otherwise come across as fury in his face.

For the layer of devote affection in Harry's expression, Hermione was conciliatory rather than caustic when she said, "I know, Harry. I wasn't expecting him to take it that far… but I know better now. He's playing at a different game than his usual bluster, he's playing for much bigger stakes than he ever has before, and I'm wise to that now. I won't let myself be caught like that again. I _don't_ want you to risk being expelled because of me."

Harry didn't offer a retort, but the pinch of his lips and the knit in his brow said it all. He thought her worth that a thousand times over, and worth risking a thousand times worse, but he wasn't fool enough to say that to her. He did know Hermione well enough to see an impossible wall of stubbornness when she put one up. And unlike Ron, he never fancied the practice of uselessly throwing himself against it.

Hermione leaned forward and touched Harry's hand to stress the importance that he listen to her. "Harry, please… trust me. I know you just want to protect me, but I really can look out for myself. He won't disarm me again like he did today, and if he does…" Hermione's expression hardened, even as her eyes shone at Harry, "remember, Harry, you're not the only one who could physically rip Malfoy apart without a wand.

"Malfoy may be serving a darkness bigger than himself that has given him the bollocks to go farther than he would on his own, but here in Hogwarts, as a boy with a wand, he's no match for either of us."

Harry studied Hermione a moment then relented with a sigh. "I know… you're right. I just…"

"I know," Hermione said softly and smiled while he considered her. Harry waited a beat before finally giving a relenting nod, none too happy about it, but aware of a battle he would have to concede.

With the stand-off between Harry and Hermione resolved, the atmosphere in the room seemed to relax by several degrees.

Ron sat back and blew out a breath. "Well, it's never a dull moment with you, is it, Harry? Though I have to say I'm really sorry I missed seeing you, uh, seeing Knight tear into Malfoy. Boy, I'd have given my new Cleansweep to see that! Well, maybe not my _new_ one, but definitely my old one."

Ginny favored her brother with a long-suffering but affectionate look. Then she turned to Hermione. "So, do you have an animagus name, too, Hermione? Like Knight?"

She nodded. "It's Sagehunter."

"Sagehunter?" Ron repeated with a look on his face like he'd just stuck his nose in a manky old shoe, "Who came up with a name like that?"

"It was given to me by a house elf."

"Oh, well, that explains it."

"What exactly does that mean?" Hermione asked with a faint edge to her voice.

"Uh… nothing, nevermind."

"I thought so," Hermione returned airily, but there was a light in her eye that told Ron that she was not as riled as she pretended. After the near-miss with absolute disaster from Knight's attack on Malfoy, she couldn't find the ire enough to be mad at something as tame as a bit of house elf disparagement by the likes of Ron.

Ron smiled, knowing the bullet he'd dodged and duly grateful for it.

"Hermione?" Harry said lowly as he looked across the table at her. Hermione saw a seriousness in his face as well as heard it in his tone that sobered her at once to possible calamity. Harry, unmindful of the two Weasleys at the table with them, asked, "Can I talk to you a minute? Alone?"

Hermione already felt the first tickle of dread. "Sure." She rose from the table just as Harry did, they met at the far end, and Harry lightly took her arm and led her silently toward the boys' dorm stairwell. Without question, Hermione went with him.

When they were in Harry's dorm room he let go of her arm and Hermione naturally gravitated toward Harry's bed. She sat down on top of the comforter and thought, in passing, how second-nature it had become to go to his bed. In a part of her mind, she even thought of it a bit as their bed. She looked forward to one day when it truly would be a bed they shared… preferably one with more room for… moving… than the slender beds of Hogwarts.

Hermione looked up at Harry, who remained standing a few feet from her. He was watching her, worry and intensity on his face.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

"What did Malfoy say to you?"

Hermione frowned and looked away. "Harry… what does it matter?"

"I want to know."

Hermione shook her head and looked back at him. "What good will it do? It would only make you angrier at him, and I don't think you need any more reason than you have already to hate Malfoy." Hermione bit her lip then added, "I don't know that Knight could handle knowing."

Harry looked bitter and walked across the room quietly to stand at the window. Hermione pulled her legs up on to the bed so she could turn and watch him. Harry stared out at the winter landscape of the school grounds, his jaw tight and profile tense.

"What are you thinking?" Hermione asked when the minutes began to drag without a word spoken.

"I'm thinking… how this will never end for you."

"What, Malfoy's insults?"

"Not just Malfoy's," Harry sighed and picked at the window sill with his fingernails. "You'll always be a target because of me. And I don't just mean Voldemort and Death Eaters, because at least those I can do something about… I can _fight_ that."

"You mean the talk. All the gossip and whispers and Rita Skeeters," Hermione said with sudden understanding.

Harry nodded and scowled out at the snow.

"Harry… you think I'm a fairly smart person, right?"

Harry's stony façade cracked to permit a fleeting smile. "You know I think you're nothing short of genius."

"Then you can't think I'd agree to marry you without realizing all that that might entail. I know you're a public figure, much as you detest it, and I know being with you puts me the spotlight, too. I can handle any number of Rita Skeeters. It's just _talk_. Talk can't harm us unless we let it. We just have to make a vow to never let gossip put a wedge between us. No matter how vile or despicable or underhanded the rumor, no matter how believable it may sound, we must promise to talk to each other before anything else, to come clean on the _real_ facts. And if we do, then all their yapping is just silly nonsense, and it can't touch us."

Harry turned to her… then he smiled, slowly and it looked like it was almost partly in amazement.

Hermione sat back a little, unsure what she'd said to garner such a reaction when only a few moments ago he'd been upset.

Harry walked over to his bed and sat down on the opposite edge, but since the bed was narrow they ended up sitting very near one another, facing each other. Harry reached up and tangled his fingers in her hair. "I can promise you that, at least," he said. "I'm still sorry that you'll be forced to deal with all the… fame crap I do."

Hermione snickered. "Wife of the Boy Who Lived? I can think of a lot worse public images to have. Might even be a nickname that could grow on me."

Harry chuckled then pulled his hand free of her hair to work his fingertips underneath the chain of her necklace. He followed it to the front of her shirt collar and Hermione watched as Harry pulled the medallion out of her shirt. She felt its absence against her skin as Harry cupped the warm gold in his palm.

Hermione looked up at Harry through her lashes while he stared at the medallion. He studied the disk a long time, let his thumb run over the etched glyphs, then he licked his lips as though about to say something… but he didn't.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered curiously.

He shook his head. "I just… stupid thought went through my head."

"What was it?"

"Well, for a moment I felt like I ought to thank you."

"For what?"

Harry looked up at her and met her gaze. He offered her a crooked smile. "For having me." A faint blush colored his cheeks and he gave a shrug.

Hermione smiled, leaned forward, and captured his mouth with hers. Harry responded at once, pressing his lips to hers, parting for her venturing tongue, engaging it with his own. His free hand came up to cradle the back of her head as Hermione deepened the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning back. Harry, resolute to not break the dueling of their tongues, followed her until she was on her back on the bed and Harry over her. For a moment time was lost to one another as they kissed. The hand Harry had wrapped around the medallion let go of the gold coin to find a better place on Hermione's waist. Hermione drew her arms back enough to splay her fingers over Harry's shoulders. She slipped her hands down beneath his arms to curl her fingers against his back. Harry sucked in a breath at her touch and when he brought his mouth back down to her it was not on her mouth, but on her throat. Hermione bit back a gasp and found her hands sliding down Harry's sides without her control. She pulled up his shirt and slipped her hands inside, bringing her skin to skin with Harry.

In a reflexive reaction to her suddenly light fingers on his stomach, Harry nipped gently with his teeth at her neck. Hermione trembled and turned her face into the crook of his neck to give him a gentle bite in retaliation.

Harry's hand on her waist moved up and cupped her breast.

"Harry…" Hermione breathed, "Ron and Ginny…"

Harry grunted. "I don't fancy making this a team sport," he rumbled close to her ear.

Hermione's eyes fluttered closed at the sound of his voice. "No… they're right downstairs… we should… Harry, stop."

Harry let her breast go, placed his hand on the bed next to her instead, but he didn't pull away or stop kissing her neck and to her eternal consternation Hermione couldn't seem to make her hands remove themselves from Harry's stomach. As Harry suckled softly at her throat, leaving a trail of insanity toward her collarbone, Hermione's hands inexplicably kept sliding higher up Harry's torso until his shirt was riding high on his shoulders and her hands were hot against his chest.

Harry's hand, ever so obedient only moments ago, rebelled and Hermione squeaked into Harry's shoulder when she felt him slip his hand under her shirt. Though really, it seemed it was only fair.

If he kept doing that to her throat with his mouth, she'd go mad. She pushed against his chest, intent on making him back up so she might have his mouth with her own. Harry leaned back as she asked and Hermione was almost shocked when her hands grabbed handfuls of his shirt and peeled it up and over his head when he moved away. Harry's hands were gone from her body for a second while he considerately freed his arms so she could completely relieve him of his shirt. She blinked up at him, winded and hungry, but not for food, when she saw him looking down at her, black hair tousled, eyes dark, and chest bare.

Hermione couldn't wait for him to come to her; she sat up, tossed Harry's shirt aside, and reached for him. Their mouths clashed together, lips and tongue and light scrapes of teeth. Hermione made a feral sound in the back of her throat when Harry's hands went to her hips, and she had to break from the kiss when Harry tugged her shirt up and over her head, much as she'd disrobed him. Hermione gaped when she found herself sitting on the bed with a half-naked Harry, she herself naked from the waist up save for her bra and the medallion.

Harry stared down at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and Hermione could have asked the rivers to run backwards for the joy in seeing him look at her as he did. She could almost pretend Ron and Ginny weren't just downstairs… almost.

Harry leaned toward her and Hermione mustered all her strength to place her hand on his chest… and push him back. He blinked at her, wounded and confused, and Hermione hated it. Because they made it necessary, just then she hated Ron and Ginny a little bit, too.

"We have to stop, Harry," Hermione breathed regretfully. "Really… Ron and Ginny could catch us."

Harry groaned. "I don't bloody even care, Mione."

The scary part was, Hermione felt much the same way when intellectually she _knew_ she shouldn't.

Her restraining hand on Harry's chest found its way to sliding up and then around to the nape of his neck… and she began to draw him nearer, her eyes locked on his lips.

A crash and inhuman scream startled them both.

"_Hey_!" they heard Ron yell from downstairs.

"Be quiet!" Ginny resounded back, being only slightly less loud than her brother.

"Bloody little furball knocked over my rook! And I was about to win!"

"Were not! And Hermione will skin you if she finds out you threw Crookshanks across the room. You're such a prat!"

"He landed on his feet, didn't he?! And I was to about to win, right before that bloody beast scattered our pieces. _You're_ going to coax the queen from underneath the couch, don't even think that I'm going to do it."

"Keep your voice down!"

"What the bloody hell for?"

"You'll ruin it for Harry and Hermione, that's what for."

"Ruin _what_ for Harry and Hermione?! They're _talking_!"

"They're _snogging_, you half-wit!"

"Talking!"

"Snogging!"

Hermione dropped her forehead to rest on Harry's bare shoulder and grumbled. "Neither now, thanks guys."

Harry chuckled, though it was hard to miss the note of regret in his tone, too. "Count on Ron to ruin a moment," he quipped dryly, nuzzling his face into her hair with a wistful sigh.

Resigned, Hermione drew back from Harry and fetched her shirt. Harry watched, a bit dejectedly, as she put it back on. When she was fully clothed again she ducked in and kissed Harry lightly on the lips, chaste and apologetic, and she said, "One day, it'll be just the two of us without a Weasley in sight."

Harry smiled.

Hermione stood from the bed. "I better go down there and see what Ron's done to poor Crookshanks."

"Mione?" Harry called after her, stopping her at the door.

She turned and looked inquiringly at him.

"Are you going to tell me what Malfoy said to you today?"

Hermione paused to study Harry a moment, weighing the consequences before she gave him an answer. "I will… when it can't get you into trouble."

"But—"

"It'll keep, Harry. Please."

Harry watched her closely a moment, warring with himself, until finally he nodded. "Okay."

Hermione smiled and left the room to see what had caused the commotion downstairs and what damage had ensued.


	59. Chapter 59

A/N: Sorry, this has nothing to do with VC, but I saw this (on AOL news, I think) and it had me laughing my ass off. They really got it right who should represent which types of mail, didn't they:D

"French mail service La Poste is celebrating Harry Potter and friends with a set of stamps and stationery. Starting this weekend, the bespectacled schoolboy wizard appears on stamps for domestic priority mail. Ron Weasley appears on stamps for slow domestic mail, and Hermione Granger appears on stamps for international mail."

* * *

They frolicked in a palace as wide as the world itself. Sunlight cut through the verdant ceiling of tree foliage to speckle their coats as they played in their endless jungle estate. Sagehunter slipped through the green, incapable of blending into the background of ivy and vines and ferns with her tawny gold coat and chestnut mane. She was a rare beauty amid it all. Knight pursued the invaluable treasure, the savannah jewel in a foreign land. His land, his jewel, his treasure.

Knight weaved between the trees, shrouded in their climbing vines as they quested for the sky, never losing sight of his lioness.

Ahead of him, Sagehunter paused, looked back over her shoulder at him, and trotted on. Knight merrily gave unrushed chase. How sweet the hunt, and the only thing sweeter being when he caught his quary.

He pushed through the jungle's mosaic of trees and brush and moss-covered logs on the trail of his prize.

In a stand of tall grass, stalks taller than a field's, not as tall as trees, bold blades with delusions of grandeur, Knight found Sagehunter lying primly, as patient and untroubled as the sky, watching him emerge from the jungle flora. She was waiting for him. In her eyes, steady and penetrating, wisdom… certainty without a flicker of doubt. She knew he'd come to her.

Knight went to her. They met, nose to nose, whisker to whisker. The whole of experiencing one another raced like lightning through their sensitive whiskers, making Knight's brain buzz with the bare touch of her. Knight rubbed his head against hers, journey's end, goal reached, beauty found.

"_Harry_…"

Knight jerked his head up and spun around, seeking the source of the voice that had cut into the pure wordlessness of nature. He looked but saw only the jungle. But there had been a voice, like a whisper on the wind, ephemeral and haunting. It had said a name, one Knight knew to belong to some other life.

Sagehunter moved behind him and Knight turned his head back to see her sitting and watching him placidly. She still awaited him. If there had been a voice, her ears had not detected it.

Knight started to move toward her again.

"_Harry_…"

Knight drew up short and whirled around, spitting at the forest for its nymphs that would call such a name. No sound met his challenge. In the time since the ghostly voice had called a forgotten boy's name, their palace had gone mute. The birds did not sing, the monkeys did not chatter, the insects did not chirrup.

Knight pinned his ears back and took a step backward, toward Sagehunter. Disquiet bloomed in his chest and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He scanned the deserted jungle for hints of the interloper who would dare to intrude on his kingdom. He would call out this presence that would interrupt Knight's time alone with his royal companion.

Knight opened his mouth and bared his teeth when, in an instant, the jungle wasn't empty anymore. Danger-shadows moved, not quite discernable as any concrete form, present nonetheless. The danger pressed closer, inching in a tightening ring around Knight and Sagehunter.

"_Harry_…"

Knight's ears suddenly pricked when a memory from another life sparked.

_Sirius_.

"Harry…"

The jungle faded away and he became aware of a hand on his shoulder. With an intake of breath, he opened his eyes to the soft light of late morning. The jungle was replaced by the hangings of his bed at Hogwarts… and the hand on his shoulder, the touch that had roused him from the burgeoning dangers of the forest, belonged to Hermione. She was lying next to him, propped up on her elbow and looking down at him in concern. To Harry's left, the disembodied sound of Ron snoring from his bed completed Harry's return to reality at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Mione?" Harry croaked, blinking away the vestiges of his dream.

"You were tossing around," Hermione whispered to the unvoiced question that was breathed with the mere utterance of her name. "Was it a nightmare?"

Harry frowned, truly perplexed as he considered the question. Would he rank that strange dream as a 'nightmare'? Maybe if he'd lingered long enough for that shapeless danger lurking in the trees to take form, but as just after-thoughts of a mind that had seen too much in such a short life as his fifteen years? But then the question of what else to call it if not a nightmare. "I guess so," he mumbled, unconvinced even as he spoke.

Hermione's eyes flashed concern and she leaned in closer. "It wasn't one of your Voldemort dreams, was it?"

Harry paused. For a moment, he thought to answer with 'I don't know', but quickly dismissed that reply as ridiculous. He was not likely to have any doubts about whether or not he'd had a Voldemort dream had he actually, in fact, been in the throes of one. The best indicator of such an occurrence would be his own body. So he took stock. His scar didn't feel like it had been recently burned into his skin with an iron, he didn't feel an insidious sense of poison in his blood, and his bones didn't ache to make him think they'd gone to rot inside. Though there was no question that he felt… discomfited, rattled. But on the back-end of a Voldemort vision-dream…?

"No…" he answered at length, "I'm not really sure what that was."

Hermione shifted closer, her voice calmer to know it wasn't one of Harry's worst kinds of nightmares. "Tell me what happened in the dream."

Already the memory of the dream was hazy, so vivid in the moment but quick to retreat from his conscious mind, back to the place of dreams. "I was Knight, and you were there, as Sagehunter, and we were in the jungle together, and then…" Harry shook his head. "There was someone calling my name, someone calling 'Harry', but I couldn't see them."

"Did it sound like Voldemort's voice?"

"No… it wasn't… an evil sound. More like… I don't know. But it wasn't that kind of calling. More like… someone trying to get your attention in class without the professor noticing. But there _was_ something wrong there… like, Dementors' shadows were in the jungle or something. Not _quite_ there, but somehow…" Harry glowered up at the canopy of his bed and with a shake of his head gave up trying to put words to the disjointed subconscious experience of his dream.

Hermione was puzzling over the clues, trying to find any significance. Harry wondered if she realized how closely she was dancing to the line that would tip her over into the prevue of divination… and how she would scowl and ruffle at the insinuation if he mentioned it.

As he lay watching her ponder the pieces, Harry's eyes widened when a faint memory from the dream rushed to the forefront of his mind. "Sirius. Sirius was there. Well, not really, I didn't _see_ him, but I know he was there."

Hermione looked doubly alert, pouncing on a detail with some substance. "Was he the one calling your name?"

"Dunno… maybe." Harry shifted on the bed to rise to one supporting elbow in mirror image of Hermione. Their faces were close enough that Harry could make her out clearly without his glasses. "Do you think he's in some kind of trouble?" he asked in mounting anxiety. Even as he asked, he wanted her to tell him no.

"I wouldn't know, Harry… you're sure it wasn't a Voldemort dream?"

Harry rubbed at his eye to dig out the sleep… and maybe to jar something a little more useful loose. "Couldn't be, could it? I mean, I don't feel like seven kinds of hell."

Hermione's fingers were suddenly brushing against his brow, at once making Harry feel enormously better about his morning so far. "You're not cold. Last time you were."

He did recall, on previous occasions when it _had_ been a Voldemort vision-dream, being both covered in sweat and shivering because he was freezing at the same time. But at that moment, dream aside, he felt rather cozy. That would fly in the face of everything that might presume to call his dream a Voldemort vision-dream.

"Maybe it was just a dream," Harry murmured in distraction, "I do have normal dreams now and then. Well, as normal as someone like me could have, complete with Dementors and Death Eaters and all on a good night." When he said it, it made him mostly believe it. And why shouldn't it be just what he said, a dream like any other? Even Harry Potter could have dreams that were not laced with portent.

Hermione started to climb out of bed. "I suppose we could go talk to Dumbledore just the same."

Reflexively, Harry reached out and stopped her. "Don't go, come back to bed. I'm sure it was just a dream."

Hermione eyed him speculatively. "You sure?"

He wanted to be. "Must have been, right? I don't feel wretched, and I always feel like death warmed over when I wake up from a Voldemort dream… yeah, I think it must have been just a regular dream this time."

Hermione didn't budge for a moment, still halfway out of bed, then she gave a grave nod and snuggled back down into the blankets with him. Harry drew her close to him and tried to give up the dream to the feeling of holding her. It would have been much easier if there wasn't still something nagging at him, a bur in the back of his brain, but he dismissed that as the normal reaction after a normal, everyday bizarre dream. Having a snuggle with Hermione certainly helped a great deal toward easing his mind of any of its post-dream misgivings.

Hermione slipped her arm around Harry's body and nestled snuggly against him. The dream was beat back that much further, and Harry was content to see it go. "You know," she mumbled comfortably into his chest, "I'm actually not looking forward to term starting again."

Harry gasped teasingly, "Hermione Granger, not looking forward to classes? What manner of polyjuice-guzzling imposter are you and what have you done with my Mione?"

Hermione giggled. "All right, I _am_ looking forward to classes, but not term, if that makes sense."

"Not particularly."

"Well, it will mean me going back to sleeping in the girls' dorm again. I don't imagine your other roommates would be quite so accommodating of me creeping in here and bunking up with you."

Harry gave a moment to mentally consider Ron snoring loudly a short distance behind his back. It would have been very easy for Ron to make a fuss about Hermione sneaking into their dorm room at nights to sleep in Harry's bed… but he hadn't. He'd put on a show of being rather nauseated, but he'd not presumed to ask Hermione to leave. Last night, he had even turned to Hermione as they were heading up to their separate bedrooms and said, 'well, come on up to our room, then; we both know you'll end there anyway, and I'd rather not get woken up by you sneaking in after midnight'. Not once had Hermione ever woken Ron with her late-night sojourns into the boys' dorm room, and Ron well knew that (it took a small natural disaster to get Ron out of bed), but it was also beside the point.

"Probably not…" Harry conceded, admitting that while Ron might be amenable to the co-ed accommodations, Dean, Seamus, and Neville would more than likely not be nearly as agreeable to sharing their room with yet another roommate, and a girl one at that. Then he smirked wryly when his fellow Gryffindor boys became the lesser of his concerns. "Not to mention with all of them knowing you slept here, sooner or later someone would let it slip out, whether they meant to or not. Could you imagine if McGonagall found out?"

Hermione's body shook as she laughed silently. Harry held her just slightly tighter, smiling to himself to feel her body shaking with mirth. "Poor Professor McGonagall," Hermione finally said in an amused voice, "We've given her a fair bit of grief this past year, I'm afraid."

"Not that much more than we do every year." Harry thought longer on that a moment then chuckled. "We're exhausting students to have, I think."

"Probably true. But still, I think she likes us despite all the trouble we cause. She very nearly has to. I mean, she's not about to have it out for her own house's seeker."

"And I'm sure she likes to boast in the professors' lounge that the brightest witch of her age is a Gryffindor."

Hermione snorted softly then sighed into Harry's chest. "Still, I expect that no matter the good graces we have with McGonagall, they would fall short of convincing her to look the other way at having a girl moving into the boys' dorm."

"Yeah, you're right… and to be honest, you really don't want to share a room with all of them. They're pigs."

"Oh, and you're not?" she countered playfully.

"No. Compared to them, I'm _very_ clean. 'Course, I would be. I mean, I did spend most of my childhood cleaning."

Hermione's hold around him tightened briefly at the glimpse of his tragic childhood, but she didn't linger on it or drawn undue attention to it, and for that he was grateful. That Hermione would know him well enough to let it go so readily, that she would know when it would be best left alone, reminded him anew just why he loved her. And knowing how carefully and correctly she would handle it, he could say it as casually as he had.

He smirked to himself, comforted by the very act of being with Hermione, and without thinking about it he perched his chin atop her head.

Hermione hummed contently in the back of her throat. "I love it when you do that," she purred.

"What?"

"That thing with your chin."

"Really?" he asked, perplexed that a gesture as benign as that would touch her so. It was hardly something he'd even consciously realized he did until she pointed it out.

Hermione nodded carefully, loathe to dislodge his chin from its apparently beloved position. "I'm not sure why, but I do."

That in itself was reason enough, in Harry's mind, and he'd have to remember to do it more often.

"So, did you want to have a lie in?" Harry asked softly.

Before Hermione could answer, Ron let out a rather grating, loud snore as he shifted positions.

It caused Hermione to chuckle. "With the lumberjack over there? Kind of ruins the peaceful moment."

Harry could agree whole-heartedly with that. "We could cast a _silencio_ on him."

Hermione chortled and buried her face in his chest to muffle her laughter. It made Harry's body fairly hum and the discomfiture that had been planted in his thoughts by his dream was momentarily forgotten. "Tempting," Hermione countered to Harry's suggested course of action, "but it seems a bit of a violation to put a spell on someone without their knowledge." Hermione was quiet a moment as she turned the other options available to them over in her head. After a time, she picked one. "We could go outside."

"For a run?" Harry drew back enough to look down at Hermione's face.

She turned her eyes up to him. "Why not? We've missed a few days of exercise, me more than you since you got in a bit of flying yesterday. And if the weather's pleasant enough, maybe we could go for a walk afterward, just spend some time being together."

"Without a chainsaw Weasley playing backup?" Harry said with a quirk of one eyebrow and a lop-sided smirk.

Hermione gave a tight-lipped smile that said she was really trying not to laugh. "Exactly."

"Sounds like a good plan to me. You want to meet in a few minutes down in the common room?"

Hermione nodded, moved in to give him a quick kiss on the lips, then slipped out of his bed and out of the dorm room without eliciting so much as a twitch of disruption in Ron's slumber. Harry watched her go, his eyes traveling from the gold 'POTTER' on her back to the creamy legs beneath the edge of maroon. She was there and gone without a sound.

Through it all, Ron snored on.

Harry shook his head and got out of bed himself to set about dressing for a winter outdoor excursion.

* * *

Their late morning run was at once refreshing and invigorating, even if Harry and Hermione were constrained, upon their promise to Kimmy, from slipping away into the Forbidden Forest and fully enjoying their run as Knight and Sagehunter as they would have done before the Christmas holidays. Still, that vow to a trusted house elf did not stop them from having fun as regular, human Harry and Hermione. There was nary a breeze, so while the white and icy winter landscape would suggest frigid cold, it did not actually feel nearly as chilly as it had looked from the window. Even still, it was cold enough that their cheeks and noses were red after their run around the perimeter of the grounds.

It was closer to noon than the morning hours by the time Harry and Hermione called it quits on the running and turned to strolling through the snow together. Once they'd cooled down from their work-out, the cold of the winter day began to prick at their skin and Harry and Hermione ducked back into the castle long enough to retrieve their coats. Ron had been awake when Harry fetched his, just getting a start on the day from the way he was bumbling around the room in his pajamas. Ron, seeing Harry grab his coat, remarked on the fact it wouldn't be long before lunch was served, but Harry had merely given a nod and wave and rejoined Hermione in the common room. With so few students at Hogwarts, it wouldn't be too terrible an inconvenience to meander their way to the kitchen later when they were hungry… by unspoken consensus, Harry and Hermione chose to resume their walk outdoors rather than share the Great Hall with their classmates.

They were walking along the shores of the Black Lake together, both consumed by the comfortable silence that had settled between them, and they appeared to be the only students outside at the moment. Harry had his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm; he'd not had the foresight to grab his gloves when he went in for his jacket. Hermione, however, naturally thought of everything and held on to Harry's elbow lightly with gloved hands. The lake was frozen over near the shoreline, pearly white ice that met the pure white banks of the snow-covered shore, white on white. As they neared the beech tree, naked of leaves and branches sheathed in ice, it creaked and cracked under the weight of its own coated twigs as ice gave but never quit broke free its hold of the tree's extremities.

They had no particular destination in mind, they just walked aimlessly. It permitted Harry's mind to wander, and though he tried not to allow it, his thoughts seemed to turn again and again to the dream.

"It's bugging you, isn't it?" Hermione asked into the quiet of their time together.

"Hmmm?" Harry asked, distracted, as he glanced over at her face.

"Your dream," Hermione said and smiled understandingly at him, "it's bugging you. Or at least something is, I can tell." Hermione frowned in sudden thought. "What else could it be, if not your dream this morning?"

Harry shook his head. "No, you're right, it's that dream. Shouldn't bug me, I know, but..." he offered an ineffectual shrug.

"If it's really troubling you, maybe you should speak to Dumbledore about it," Hermione suggested.

He'd been turning that thought over in his head a lot since he woke, if he was going to be honest with himself, and on that at least he was unambiguous in his final decision. He wouldn't bring it to Dumbledore's attention. Harry could just imagine going to the headmaster and explaining that no, he was almost certain it wasn't a Voldemort vision-dream, no, he had no indications that Sirius was in trouble and in fact had not actually seen him in the dream at all but only sensed his presence, but still he'd had a bad dream and could Dumbledore make him feel better about it? The thought turned Harry the more he gave it audience in his mind. He wasn't a child… even when he had been, he'd not turned to adults for reassurance when his nights were haunted.

"No," he answered Hermione at delay, "I'm not going to go running to Dumbledore with every little thing. What would I say to him if I did? He'd ask right away if it was a Voldemort dream and I'd have to say no, and then it would just be silly that I was even there. I'm probably just making a big deal out of an everyday nightmare, anyway."

"You know, Harry, maybe you dreamed of Sirius because you know he's out there in harm's way. You could still have nightmares about him being in some kind of danger without it having anything to do with your vision-dreams that connect you to Voldemort. It's perfectly normal for you to dream about him. I've had dreams about Sirius, too."

"You have?"

Hermione nodded. "But then, my dreams are only that… dreams. But it illustrates my point. We know he's out there, but we don't know exactly what he's doing or if he's all right at any given moment. We worry, and it comes out in our dreams." Hermione paused and her hold on his elbow tightened slightly. "I dream about my parents, too."

Harry's stomach knotted guiltily. Hermione would never let him say it was his fault that her family was in the danger that they were, but he knew it was the truth just the same, whether Hermione would hear of it or not. "I didn't know that."

Hermione shrugged much in the same way he had earlier. "It's not unexpected… I love them and I'm separated from them when there's the possibility that they're in danger. I'm scared for them. Oh, I know they're somewhere safe… rather, the safest anyone can be these days, Lupin made sure of it, but still…" Hermione pressed closer to his side and was quiet for a while, most likely pondering what her parents and grandmother were doing at that very moment. Harry was silent and let her as they walked at a snail's pace over the snowy grounds.

"The nightmares aren't as bad when I'm in bed with you," Hermione finally spoke again, softly as though it was a secret she'd been charged to keep and she was breaking a promise by telling him. "I think waking up and having you there makes me… I don't know, but I just feel better."

Oddly, _that_ made _him_ feel better. Harry smirked faintly. "And I thought you were in my bed because you couldn't keep your hands off me."

"Well, that too," Hermione answered nonchalantly, then snickered. "This could be bad, Harry."

"Huh? What could be bad?"

"I may be growing a bit too dependent on you. What will I do when term starts and I have to muddle through my nightmares all by myself?" Her tone was playful, but when she looked into his eyes, when their gazes connected but for a moment, he saw a flicker of bare honesty in them. She really was concerned about facing the night alone.

Harry swallowed a lump of emotion that lodged in his throat. He wasn't sure what it was, he didn't examine it, didn't want to. It might pull him under if he did. "You send Crookshanks to get me out of bed. I'll come down, and we'll sleep on the couch in the common room," he answered earnestly.

Hermione leaned into him. "So you'll be the addiction _and_ the enabler?" Still her words were said with jesting inflections, while the whole of her body language screamed the tenderness and intimacy of their exchange. In their bodies, beyond speech, they were always the most honest with one another, as cats and people. Harry had always found great comfort in that, because he wasn't the best with saying how he felt, but he could show her. His hands were more fluent in the medium of communication than the breadth of his vocabulary.

Harry stopped and turned to face her. Hermione looked up at him, almost smiling, not quite, but eyes shining. He quaked at the idea that she could 'get past' turning to him, be it for comfort from bad dreams or for affection. "Mione," Harry said gently, staring into her eyes to give him courage, "maybe I'm a selfish prat, but… I don't want you to stop needing me." There was a time when the thought of someone needing him would have been terrifying, because Harry wasn't used to being that emotionally vital to anyone or anything. It was a daunting and crippling responsibility that he wasn't equipped to handle. But it was different now with Hermione. He needed her to need him. He wondered who ended up needing the other more… he decided his need for her was the greater. Without him she was still a brilliant, beautiful witch full of potential. Without her, he was a pathetic, unloved boy with a scar on his head and a target on his back.

Hermione smiled at him, like an angel in the snow, and slid a hand around the back of his neck, stood on her toes, and kissed him softly on the mouth. "I never will, Harry," she whispered against his lips, her breath warming his mouth.

Harry gazed down at her, in wonder at how such an incredible person could ever need the likes of him, and then he brought up one hand and tangled his fingers in her hair. Hermione's smile turned to one side in more of a quirky smirk. Had she been Sagehunter, it would have been the slightest tick of her ears backward.

"I'll just look forward to the day when I don't have to wonder if my dreams mean something bad is happening to the people I care about."

Hermione leaned into him, closed her eyes as though at the altar of a holy shrine, and breathed, "It's so good to hear you talk like that."

That puzzled him. "Talk like what?"

Hermione opened her eyes to look up at him. "Talk about the future as though you have one beyond Voldemort." Harry blinked at her, shocked because he never stopped to consider that he'd been doing it. When Hermione saw that he'd caught up to her observation, her smile turned slightly bittersweet. "You didn't used to."

She was right, he hadn't. He hadn't talked about it and he hadn't thought about it. It was too easy to see his life going no farther than the menace that was the dark wizard that had robbed him of a proper family, a proper childhood, and quite possibly a proper life. But now he did let himself look past the shadow of Voldemort, to days free of his presence and his threat and his blackness… he wasn't sure when it had changed, but slowly and surely it had.

"I guess now I actually want something beyond Voldemort," Harry commented, almost to himself as he sussed out the truth of it all.

"You didn't before?"

Harry thought about how to say it. "Well, yes, I did, but… vaguely… it wasn't really real, no matter how much I tried to think of it as being likely to happen someday." He turned it over in his head a bit. "Like the way Ron wishes to be rich and famous when he grows up. He dreams and dreams about it, but I don't think he really _believes_ it will happen." Harry shrugged a tad sheepishly as he confessed, "I couldn't picture it, I guess. I just… really couldn't grip it." His expression was touched with a hint of the irony in the whole issue. "Made it hard to really want something I couldn't honestly imagine."

"But now you can? Imagine it?"

Harry nodded. "You drew it for me, Hermione."

Hermione blushed, though why that would strike her so, Harry couldn't say. It was merely the truth as best he could explain it. Before, his future had been one of two canvases. One filled with Voldemort and Death Eaters and pain and tribulations and quite likely his own death. The other was blank. Harry didn't have a reference to even begin to sketch an alternate future on the blank canvas. He couldn't envision a normal life that was not tangled in darkness and anguish, whether by Voldemort or by his aunt and uncle's not-so-tender rearing practices. He was trying to paint the Sistine Chapel without once ever holding a paintbrush.

Then Hermione came in with her pallet and paints and the blank canvas wasn't blank anymore. And the future she intimated he could have was so much greater than the one of Voldemort that he'd stared at for so long. He _wanted_ to have what she showed him, he wanted it so desperately that he clung to the alternative with a drowning man's grip. He wanted it so badly he began to let himself believe he might live it one day, that beautiful, happy painting in Hermione's loving brushstrokes. Harry Potter began to think he might actually live happily ever after. He wondered if he could ever make Hermione understand how fantastic a feat that was, and just how amazing she was for being the one to accomplish it.

Hermione beamed up at him, radiant in the noonday winter vista. He leaned closer to kiss her, to show her with his lips how much her artistry in his life was cherished, when movement in the sky drew his eyes upward. His Quidditch training predisposed him to seeing and seeking movement in the sky.

At first he noted only a large bird flapping its way toward the castle. He thought it might be an owl, possibly tawny from the brown coloring. Quickly he realized it was not an owl, it was far too big for even the largest species of owl, easily twice Hedwig's size, and the feathers were more chestnut-gold than brown. Its head was too streamlined for an owl, and just as Hermione turned to see what had captured his attention he realized it was a hawk… no, eagle, for it was much, much too big to be a hawk.

What had drawn Harry's gaze more than anything was the fact that the bird was flying haphazardly. It was barely keeping airborne, flying desperately for a place to land and rest.

"It's hurt," Hermione remarked.

It was. A wounded eagle was fighting its way to Hogwarts, and Harry wondered why it would be so determined to reach the wizardry and witchcraft school when it might have landed anywhere.

Suddenly Harry's body went rigid and cold and his eyes widened in realization. "It's _Shylock_!"

Hermione gasped and turned at once to look up at him.

It had to be Aberforth Dumbledore in his animagus form… why else would an eagle be trying so very hard to reach the castle?

And the next understanding to sink darkly into Harry's bones was the fact that Abertforth had been out hunting for Voldemort with Sirius… and a quick scan of the grounds did not turn up a shaggy black dog.

"Sirius is in trouble," Harry said with certainty, his heart racing. "Come on," he took Hermione's hand and dragged her toward the castle.

"Where are we going?" she asked as she hurried to match his pace.

"To talk to Dumbledore, either one, I have to know what's happened to Sirius."


	60. Chapter 60

They tried the headmaster's offices first, but no amount of shouting or knocking or sweet-talking of the door could rouse a response. Harry was getting wound up, anxious to learn what had become of his godfather.

It was Hermione who finally said, "Oh, for goodness sake, what are we thinking? If Aberforth's hurt, he'll be in the hospital wing, and of course his brother would be there."

With that, the two set off through the halls at a run bound for the hospital wing.

They barged in without so much as a knock and startled a cluster of people standing around a hospital bed. The headmaster, Pomfrey, McGonagall, and Kimmy were surrounding a bed where a patient lay. Harry and Hermione could not see the man's face for the ring of worried visitors and the mediwitch, but they were not given much opportunity to gawk. In passing, they both noticed the prone, motionless figure of Draco Malfoy lying in a bed with bandages around his upper arms, lying as still as death in his induced coma, but he was not the reason they had burst into the medical wing and they paid him no heed. When Dumbledore turned at their abrupt entrance his expression darkened and he commanded in a resonating voice, "You should not be here, you two."

"Where's Sirius?" Harry demanded.

There was restless fidgeting from the bed at the utterance of the name, though nothing coherent as words issued forth. Kimmy's eyes, wide and fearful, turned to the shifting figure on the bed. Pomfrey shushed him and bent closer to administer some potion or charm to ease his discomfort.

Dumbledore was not amused by Harry's stubbornness. He looked sharply at McGonagall and gave a curt nod.

McGonagall at once left the bedside of the wounded man and began to force and usher Harry and Hermione out of the hospital wing with her unyielding presence. Harry and Hermione backed up before her, even as Harry repeated, "What's happened? I know that's Aberforth, and I know he was working with Sirius. Where's Sirius?"

When they were outside in the hallway, McGonagall closed the door and turned angrily to her two students. "Mister Potter! You would do well to contain yourself."

"But Sirius is in trouble!" he protested.

"And the headmaster's brother is gravely injured! Of all the insensitive things you could have done, marching in there and demanding of him when he may very well lose the last family member he has!"

Harry clamped his mouth shut and Hermione winced. "We're sorry, professor," Hermione said on their behalf. "We… we weren't thinking."

"I should expect not."

Harry's voice was calmer and quieter, though no less plaintive, when he said, "Please, professor, I'm sorry for shouting like that, but I _have_ to know what's become of my godfather. Is he even still alive?"

McGonagall frowned. "He is… for now."

"When did it happen?" Harry asked, thinking with dread of his dream… not quite a vision-dream, but a sense of something _wrong_ that had not let him be.

"A few hours ago, if I understand correctly."

"Where—"

"That's all I can tell you right now, Mister Potter. I won't have you doing anything rash in the state you're in."

"But—!"

"No, you've been enough of a disruption as it is. Have some consideration for the headmaster and his poor brother lying in there close to death. Someone will find you and give you more information later, at least what of it you need to know, but I must go back inside." With that dismissal, McGonagall turned and slipped back into the hospital wing. Harry jumped after her and, heedless of the reprimand he received for doing it once, tried to push open the door… only to find it had been locked shut.

Just as he was pulling out his wand to cast _alohamora_ Hermione grabbed his forearm to stop him.

"Hermione!" Harry said shortly.

"I know you want to find out what's happened to Sirius, but making Dumbledore angry isn't going to help you," she said, and Harry lowered his arm in surrender.

"Well, what do we do? I _have_ to know what's become of Sirius."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip a moment and Harry knew she had an idea when the light in her eyes changed. "Let's go," she said, and turned on her heel and hurried down the corridor.

Harry jogged to catch up. "Where?"

"My room… or yours, doesn't matter, we both have what we need."

"And what's that?"

"Kimmy's summoning sphere."

Harry's room ended up being all of a few steps closer, but that was enough to decide them. They scaled the stairs and threw open the dorm room door to find it empty.

"Ron must still be at lunch," Hermione noted while Harry went straight to his trunk and started to dig through the contents, throwing clothes and books in every direction in his search. Finally he produced the milky white globe. With a quick look at Hermione, he looked into the ball and called, "Kimmy."

The house elf's likeness appeared in the orb, then faded, and only a matter of seconds latter there were suddenly three in the room where before there had been two. Standing in front of Harry in plaid boxer shorts, Kimmy stood with hands twisting together.

Hermione had never seen an elf look so pale. She was ashen and her eyes seemed to bulge even more than usual, the green color glistening with unshed tears.

"Mister Harry Potter called upon Kimmy," she said in a quavering voice.

Hermione stepped closer and knelt next to the elf. "We're so sorry, Kimmy, about Aberforth."

Kimmy's lips trembled, but she did not cry. "Master Aberforth is being very badly hurt. Kimmy is fearful she will lose him."

Hermione pulled Kimmy into a hug and the house elf clung to Hermione. She let loose a high-pitch screeching sound, perhaps house elf grief, but she did not cry as a person would. Hermione patted her on the back and cast a 'give her a moment' look up at Harry. Harry, though impatient, had the decency to give their beloved house elf a minute to bemoan the fate of the wizard who was very much like a son to her.

"We're so very, very sorry, Kimmy," Hermione said gently, "we know how close you are to the Dumbledores. We hope he gets better."

"Kimmy hopes so with all her hoping," Kimmy replied, then she pulled away from Hermione. She turned sorrowful eyes to Harry. "Why did Mister Harry Potter call Kimmy away from her master when he is needing her so greatly?"

Harry grimaced at the unintended accusation. "I… I don't want to keep you, Kimmy, but I need you to tell me… I know Aberforth was working with Sirius Black trying to find Voldemort. I need to know what's happened to Sirius."

Kimmy blinked at him a moment.

"Please, Kimmy, Sirius Black is my godfather."

That seemed to sway Kimmy. "This is being a very tragic day for both Kimmy and Mister Harry Potter… Kimmy is very sorry for that."

Harry went nearly as pale as the house elf. "Is he… he isn't dead. McGonagall said he wasn't."

Kimmy shook her head. "Not being dead, but… it is still being very bad."

"Please tell us, Kimmy. We don't want to keep you from Aberforth any longer than we have to," Hermione coaxed softly.

Kimmy sat down on the floor and let out a shaky breath. "Sirius Black is being at Dane."

Hermione gasped and shot a stunned look up at Harry. "That's not very far from Hogsmeade."

Kimmy nodded. "Master Aberforth and Sirius Black were being there looking for You Know Who. They were finding him."

"Voldemort's in _Dane_?!" Hermione brought a hand to her mouth in shocked horror. "Oh, Merlin, he's been so close! Has he been _there_ all this time?" She looked sickened by the thought, the devil practically in their backyard.

"Master Aberforth and Sirius Black were captured. Master Aberforth escaped and came here, for help and to tell what was being happening to them at Dane."

"The last Aberforth knew, Sirius was still in Dane?" Harry asked.

Kimmy nodded.

Harry went to one knee in front of Kimmy and touched her shoulder. "Thanks, Kimmy. You should get back to Aberforth. He needs you."

Kimmy gave a nod then vanished, leaving Harry's hand to rest on thin air.

Harry rose and put the sphere back in his trunk. Then he went to the closet and fetched his Firebolt.

Hermione jumped to her feet. "Harry… what do you think you're doing?"

"Going to Dane." He moved past her toward the stairs.

Hermione hurried after him. "Are you mad?! You _can't_! You know Voldemort's there!"

"And I know he has Sirius. I can't sit here and do nothing, Hermione. I have to help him."

Hermione grabbed his arm once in the common room and turned him to face her. "Harry, please, listen to me. You can't just rush off to face Voldemort like this, you'll get yourself killed!"

"What am I supposed to do? Sit here and hope for the best? Act like this isn't all because of me? This is my fault."

"Sirius made his own choice to hunt down Voldemort."

Harry should his head. "Sirius would never have gone looking for Voldemort if it wasn't for me."

"That doesn't mean you have to go charging in and giving Voldemort exactly what he wants!" Hermione yelled. "We'll contact the authorities, the ministry, tell them where Voldemort is, and they can throw everything they have at him."

"We can't trust the ministry," Harry retorted, "Moody said so. If you contact the ministry all that will do is risk Voldemort being tipped off that we know where he is. He could take Sirius anywhere if he knew Aurors were coming for him and we may never find Sirius, or Voldemort might just kill Sirius to be done with it! We can't go to the ministry and you know it.

"Right now, we know where Voldemort is and where he's holding Sirius. I'm going after him."

"For the love of Merlin, Harry, stop and _think_!" Hermione rounded him to stand in his path. Harry scowled at her but didn't shove her out of the way. It granted Hermione the floor. "You're right, for the moment we know where Voldemort is. Half the wizarding world has been looking for him for _months_, and right now we know where he is. We can't just throw that away on a half-cocked rescue mission for one man."

Harry bristled. "Are you suggesting I just _let_ Voldemort have Sirius?"

"No… I… I'm _suggesting_ that you look at the bigger picture. This could be the chance to finish Voldemort, if it's done right, if the right people are told, and if they act quickly enough. It could be the end of Voldemort, and that's bigger than any one man."

"Sacrifice Sirius, you mean," Harry said lowly.

Hermione went still. "You know Sirius would think it a fair trade. Just like you would in his place. Just like I would."

Harry grabbed Hermione's arm in his free hand, not in anger so much as the reflexive agony to think of her giving up her life, even if it was to rid the world of Voldemort. Hermione met his eyes in complete understanding, and Harry wanted to throw up at the thought of Hermione dying for any cause. No cause was enough to warrant her death, not even the salvation of the world. It would be sparing the moon only to throw away the sun.

But it wasn't her life in the balance, it was Sirius's.

"Hermione… I… I _can't_. I can't just leave him there."

"You may have to."

"I _can't_," he said in despair.

"You must."

Both teenagers looked up sharply at the third voice that had joined theirs, and they saw none other than Albus Dumbledore standing in the portrait hole of the the Gryffindor common room looking directly at Harry.

Harry and Hermione gaped at the headmaster. He looked more harried and worn than they had ever seen the wizened wizard. No one seemed to know quite what to say. It was a three-way stand-off between Harry, Hermione, and Dumbledore.

While they were standing around watching each other, giggles broke the silence. Oliver and Lavender, hands entwined, stumbled into the portrait hole behind Dumbledore, their heads close together, but they both drew up short and went silent when they saw the headmaster in the common room.

"Oh," Lavender said awkwardly, and Oliver dropped Lavender's hand. He looked uncomfortably between Dumbledore and then his two fellow Gryffindors. "Uh… sorry, we… didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"Harry, Hermione," Dumbledore said, "step outside with me. We'll walk." It was an order, not a request, and with no other choice Harry and Hermione sidled past Lavender and Oliver and followed Dumbledore into the corridor. It looked as though students were returning from lunch; for that reason, Dumbledore led them down a hallway that did not lead toward the Great Hall. It allotted them privacy, as no one was in that hallway.

Only when they were alone did Dumbledore speak. "That was shamefully underhanded of you two, to wheedle information out of Kimmy the way you did."

Hermione swallowed and Harry's face went pink with borderline humiliation to be chastised so plainly. "We… no one would tell us what was going on, what had happened to Sirius… we had to do something."

"And it did not once occur to you that perhaps your elders had things in hand." Dumbledore shook his head. "I had thought you, at least, would have more faith in your professors, Miss Granger."

"_Are_ things in hand?" she asked pointedly.

Dumbledore scowled, and it was a very disquieting thing to see such a powerful's man face turn stormy. Luckily, it was not aimed at Harry and Hermione. "Professor McGonagall is in my office as we speak making contact with the right people, putting into motion the necessary preparations. _Surely_ you would not think that information of this nature would go unused?"

Hermione replied with a glance at Harry, "Ha-we… _we_ weren't really thinking all that clearly."

Dumbledore didn't point out the real culprit in that particular misdeed; there was no need. It was so obvious that they all might as well have said it.

"How did you get Kimmy to seek you out?" at the last, the headmaster finally looked down at the two students.

"Uhh… for Christmas she gave Harry and me summoning spheres," Hermione answered shyly.

Dumbledore mulled that over. "Interesting. Even I would not have suspected she presented you two with such invaluable bobbles. Though I am now doubly disappointed to think that you have taken advantage of her love for the both of you."

"We didn't… we needed _help_," Harry protested, "and she was the only one who cared enough to give it to us. Everyone else sent us away."

"You need _perspective_," Dumbledore countered harshly, and Harry pinched his lips together, his Firebolt still held tightly in one hand. "From what I overheard, Miss Granger has some idea of the gravity of the situation. I would suggest you listen to her as properly befits a husband."

Harry had no answer to that.

"How is Aberforth?" Hermione asked carefully.

Dumbledore sighed and he suddenly looked tired. "Madam Pomfrey is doing all she can. She believes she can save his life, though there is question if he will ever fly again. It's a wonder that he made it this far in his present condition."

"What about Sirius?" Harry asked after a pause.

"I will be leaving shortly for Hogsmeade, where I will meet with those trusted allies who are being called upon even as we speak. When we have sufficient numbers, and a viable plan, we will make for Dane. With the luck of Merlin on our side, this will all end today."

It was almost too immense to comprehend, the end of Voldemort. "But… what if that's not soon enough? How long will it take to gather everyone and come up with a plan? What if Voldemort kills Sirius?"

Dumbledore stopped and turned to face Harry squarely. Harry and Hermione halted before the headmaster. "Harry… I will do everything I can to save Sirius, his devotion and loyalty to our cause is beyond reproach and I would rejoice to see his name finally cleared with the ministry so that he might lead a normal life, but he is not top priority right now. He knows that as well as I do, as well as you do though you don't want to admit it. If we're too late to save Sirius… then we will make sure his loss was not in vain."

"I'm coming with you," Harry said.

"You are not."

"Sir! He's Voldemort's prisoner because of _me_! I can't just pretend like he's not in trouble because of me. I have to do something. I have to help him."

"The best way you can help him is to do as I say and stay out of harm's way. Sirius put himself on the line to protect you; what would all that he's done amount to if you walked right into Voldemort's hands?"

Harry searched for words, but he knew nothing would sway the headmaster.

"I have no more time to discuss this with you; I must leave for Hogsmeade. Harry… I must insist that you relinquish your broom."

Harry's eyes widened. "What?"

"Your broom," Dumbledore held out his hand.

Harry stared at Dumbledore's extended hand but there was nothing he could do to refuse. With great pains, he handed his beloved Firebolt over to the headmaster.

"You may have it back when this is over, I promise. And in case you were thinking of 'borrowing' transportation from the Quidditch locker, may I remind you that school brooms have charms placed on them that prevent them from leaving school grounds."

Harry's expression soured but he only nodded.

Dumbledore considered his two students a moment, Hermione looking dejected and fretful, Harry looking angry and helpless.

"Harry, Hermione…" Dumbledore said in a surprisingly soft voice.

Both students looked up at him. Dumbledore looked down at them, compassion glittering in his eyes. For all the discord only moments ago, he looked just then very much the gentle wizard who had watched over them for so many years. After a moment, their faces softened as they studied their headmaster.

Finally, Dumbledore nodded. "Better. I dreaded to think that this may be the last time I see either of you, and that it was with such loathing on your faces."

Hermione squeaked and leapt forward to wrap her arms around Dumbledore, surprising everyone, including Hermione. "We don't hate you, sir. _Do_ be careful; you _have_ to come back."

Dumbledore patted her on the back, still looking a bit thrown to have a student embrace him so strongly. "I'll certainly do my best; I have no wish to die today. Now that's quite enough, my dear, it won't do for me to show up at Hogsmeade to fight a war with a frog in my throat."

Hermione gave a strangled chuckle, almost a sob, and stepped away from Dumbledore. She stepped back to stand abreast with Harry and took his hand. Dumbledore gave them both a nod and turned and walked away. Impossible as it was to think of anyone besting Dumbledore, there was still the _chance_ that it would be the last time they saw the headmaster alive. Harry watched Dumbledore walk away, and it became a precious name on a list that Harry kept in the back of his mind. His mother and father, Miranda, Jake, Berti, Sirius, and now Dumbledore. People that meant so much to him taken one by one by Voldemort.

Harry was tired of it. He wanted it to end. Today.

Hermione wrapped her hands around his arm. "He'll be okay," she said, mostly to herself. "He's Dumbledore, he'll be fine."

Harry nodded. "He'll be fine," he said, because he knew she needed to hear it.

Hermione rested her head on his shoulder, he could feel her trembling faintly against him, then she brought up her head and looked quickly at him. "Oh! How could I have been so stupid? We don't have to just sit here and wonder about what's going on. We have to find Ron."

"Ron?"

Hermione nodded. "We'll have him contact his father in the ministry, surely he'll have more information than we do, and we _know_ we can trust Arthur Weasley. Maybe the only person working the ministry that we can. At least we'll have word of what's happening. It's better than sitting here in the dark."

Harry nodded. "Ron may still be in the Great Hall eating lunch. I'll go check there; you go check the common room."

Hermione nodded eagerly and turned at once to march back to Gryffindor tower in search of Ron.

'I'm sorry, Hermione,' Harry thought as he hurried off down the corridor, toward the Great Hall… but before he reached the communal gathering room he turned and headed toward a door that led out to the school grounds.

When he opened the door to step outside he nearly ran into Ginny coming back inside.

"Oh! Harry. You startled me. I was looking for you. You and Hermione missed lunch."

"Uh, yeah… she and I decided to skive off and eat later. I'm just heading out now to meet her by the lake."

Ginny shrugged. "Oh, well, okay. Have a good time."

Harry nodded and stepped around Ginny. With that obstacle cleared, there was nothing standing between him and Dane.


	61. Chapter 61

A/N: sigh Not that I think it's going to do any good, since I STILL get comments about Harry's eyes being blue in this fic, but just a reminder **_this is based on movie canon up to Goblet of Fire_**. Therefore, no prophecy yet, and no horcruxes. This is just to let everyone know that I won't be paying attention to reviews decrying this 'oversight'. It's not an oversight, you just didn't read the A/N, and I won't be held responsible for that. For those of you who are aware of this repeatedly stated fact and are coming along with me on this story, disregard this note and continue on to the chapter. Enjoy!!

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Hermione found Ron in his dorm room thumbing through a Quidditch magazine while sitting crossed-legged on his bed. When she came in, no longer surprised to have Hermione Granger barge right into the boys' dorm room, Ron looked up and said, "Hey, Hermione…" he glanced behind Hermione, "where's Harry?"

"In the Great Hall looking for you. Put that magazine away; there's trouble, Ron."

Ron sat up straighter and his care-free expression fled, as much for Hermione's demeanor as her actual words. "What kind of trouble?"

"Voldemort kind."

"_Shite_!" Ron cursed under his breath and got off the bed. "What's going on?"

Hermione gave Ron a quick version of the events of that morning from the moment she and Harry spotted Shylock struggling toward the castle. Early in her recount, Ginny wandered into the room. When the youngest Weasley caught on to the topic of conversation she went very sober and listened raptly while Hermione finished her story with Dumbledore leaving only moments ago for Hogsmeade to put together an impromptu army of witches and wizards to confront Voldemort.

By the time Hermione was finished summarizing the morning's flurry of activity, Ron's skin had a ghostly pallor that made his hair unbearably orange and his freckles stand out like chicken pox. Ginny was stony-faced, the lines of her young face severe and vicious… she had her own personal reasons to want Voldemort dead for the things he'd done to her in her first year.

"So we need to get into Dumbledore's office to use his fireplace. We need you to floo your father at the ministry," Hermione at last got to the reason she'd gone looking for the Weasleys.

"What can Dad do?" Ron asked with a thick swallow, still reeling from the information about Voldemort being so terrifyingly close to the school.

"Tell us what is going on from within the ministry. There's no way here at Hogwarts for us to keep apprised of what's happening with the attack on Dane, but there might be someone inside the ministry who would know more than we do, and it may be your father knows them."

Ron nodded. "Yeah, maybe. Though Dad isn't exactly in the department for fighting dark wizards and Death Eaters. He could know even less than we do, you know."

Hermione had thought of that, but she shook her head just the same. "It's the best we have right now, and it's worth a try.

"Now we all we have to do is find Harry."

"He's outside," Ginny said.

Hermione turned quickly to look at Ginny. "What?"

"I passed him on my way in; he said you were meeting him out by the lake." Ginny's eyebrows drew together when she saw the aghast look on Hermione's face to the news. "What's wrong?"

"That _git_!" Hermione screeched.

Hermione rushed to Harry's still-open trunk and pawed through the contents until she found the Marauder's Map. She hastily drew out her wand and said in a rush, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," and tapped the map with the tip of her wand. The grounds of Hogwarts appeared on the parchment, complete with moving footprints and their corresponding name tags for the occupants of Hogwarts.

She called up the images of the map and flipped to the proper page just in time to see the tiny footprints that bore the label 'Harry Potter' reach the edge of Hogwarts' grounds then disappear beyond the scope and range of the map.

"_Bloody hell_!" Hermione cursed and threw down the map in disgust. She whirled and ran for the door.

"Hey! Wait, what's going on?!" Ron called, "Where's Harry?!"

"On his way to Dane!" Hermione yelled furiously over her shoulder, then she was gone.

Ginny and Ron looked at one another, shocked.

"He _wouldn't_…," Ginny gasped.

"Oh, bloody right he would," Ron groused and shook his head.

"Shouldn't we go with Hermione? If she's going to stop him, she may need help."

Ron rubbed at his hair furtively and shook his head. "Don't think we could keep up. I get the feeling it won't be Hermione catching up with Harry so much as Sagehunter catching up with Knight."

"Oh…" Ginny said with resignation.

Ron went over to the Marauder's Map and picked it up. He glanced at the hurrying representation of Hermione as she raced through the hallway and out of the castle in pursuit of Harry.

Ginny shrugged. "Well, we could still contact Dad and see if he knows anything about the meeting at Hogsmeade and going after Voldemort at Dane."

Ron nodded and he and his sister left the boys' dorm and descended the stairs. As they reached the hallway Ron began to glance at the map in his hand. No reason to get caught trying to sneak into Dumbledore's office if there was a way to avoid it right at his fingertips.

They were halfway there when the half-page Hermione had turned to in order to look for Harry on the grounds, since her departure a blank page as most everyone was inside, suddenly spotted with new footprints and new floating name tags.

"Hold on," Ron stopped and peered closer at the new images. There were names emerging that he did not recognize; he puzzled over 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle' a moment, knowing the two Slytherins were not at the school for the Christmas holiday, then he yelped like a kicked dog when 'Tom Morvolo Riddle Jr.' walked its way on to the page.

"What?" Ginny asked anxiously to her brother's outburst and sudden lack of color.

"_He's here_!" Ron hissed.

Ginny yanked the map away from Ron and looked down at it. Her eyes went wide as saucers when she saw what he had. "But… he's supposed to be in Dane!"

"Well, he's not. I have to tell Harry and Hermione."

"What do I do?" Ginny asked, looking up at her brother frantically.

"Take the map, find McGonagall, show her, _warn_ her! And for pity's sake, _be careful_!" With that Ron turned and ran. He ran as fast as his feet could carry him… he cursed not taking up running with Harry and Hermione. It seemed to take him hours to lunge his way up the Gryffindor boys' dorm stairwell.

Heaving for breath, he staggered to the closet, threw open the door, and pulled out his new Cleansweep. He noticed Harry's Firebolt missing… no time for that. He raced to Harry's trunk, in such a sad state of disarray from two mindless ransackings, and Ron added his own mess to the anarchy as he threw aside the few jumpers and pants that lay atop Harry's invisibility cloak. Ron snatched it up and ran from the room.

He donned the cloak well before he was at a door to the outside. With heart pounding, he stood in the doorway and scanned the grounds for sign of Voldemort and his followers. He saw nothing yet, but that did little to ease Ron's anxiety. He knew they were there.

Ron mounted his broom, firmly fixed one corner of the invisibility cloak to the end of his broom, leaned in, and flew forward. He skirted the ground as fast as he dared, keeping low because the cloak wouldn't do him any good if he was over the Death Eaters' heads and they happened to look up. It wouldn't do him any good if he flew too fast and it flapped in the wind, revealing glimpses of Ron's legs and feet.

So he skimmed the earth, so close that he could see the details in the imprints of shoes in the snow, and he flew agonizingly slow and let the thought consume him 'find Harry and Hermione, find them, don't get caught, tell them, Voldemort's at Hogwarts!'

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Hermione ran as she had never run before, legs and arms pumping as she charged after Harry. There was no sign of him ahead of her save for his racing footprints that she followed unerringly. When she was clear of the school, safe from the risk of prying eyes belonging to students leaning out school windows, when she was well and fully fled into the woods in pursuit of Harry, she dropped down without slowing her stride and became Sagehunter. The difference was like that between night and day. It made it seem as though she'd been running in waist-deep water as Hermione Granger. Sagehunter accelerated ahead at break-neck speed, coursing over the snow with wide paws kicking up drifts of white powder. Her paws weren't made to manage snow, but they managed it better than a girl's dainty feet. Sagehunter surged forward, ears back and long back folding and bowing at double-time, coiling and extending with each earth-engulfing stride. She found Knight's paw prints where Harry had changed, caught his scent, and ran.

She had to stop him, it was her only thought, a singular purpose in an acute hunter's mind.

Luck was with her, or rather, Knight's impatience to reach Dane worked to her favor. His tracks left the maze of trees that comprised the forest and broke into open ground. It was a straighter course to Hogsmeade, and therein Dane.

It was the break Sagehunter desperately needed.

Sagehunter put on a burst of speed and charged ahead over the open land.

At last, ahead, she saw a spot of movement amid the barren trees and white banks of snow. As she ran harder, drew nearer to the smudge, she made out the black form of a large cat running ahead of her. Knight. Sagehunter poured every ounce of strength she had into catching him. It was a hunt that she must not botch. If she lost her quarry she risked the loss of so much more than she could bear to think on. Failure was not acceptable, she _had_ to stop him.

While still a fair distance away, Knight heard something closing on him from behind as Sagehunter drew ever closer to his racing form. He stopped momentarily to whirl and face his pursuer… when he saw it was her he spat angrily, teeth bared, and spun around. With a deft change of direction, he dashed for the tree line.

Sagehunter raced with all the speed that her feline body could allot her. If Knight reached the trees, if it became a race amid the forest, she couldn't catch him. Her only hope to overtake him was on open terrain. She had to get to him before he was in the forest, in _his_ natural element.

His detour to the woods was not directly ahead of her or him, it was to Knight's left. It provided her the chance to lead her target rather than merely giving flat pursuit… it gave her a little more ground to reach him quicker as he ran perpendicular to her straight line. He knew as well as she where the advantage would go to him, and he meant to use it against her. He was banking everything on reaching the forest before she reached him.

He very nearly did, and it was with a last moment of horror to think that she might lose him that Sagehunter reached for the last bit of power in her cat body and sprang forward. Knight froze when he saw it coming, fairly flying at him but for the lack of wings, but he wasn't quick enough to dodge her leap. Sagehunter slammed into Knight and they went down in a hissing, rolling ball of black and tawny fur.

Knight kicked and screamed to free himself from her. Sagehunter scrambled to keep him down. Neither used claws or teeth, but they threw themselves at one another with the full of their body weight, trying to joust the other into submission.

They tussled and tangled in the snow for a furious few seconds before Knight fought free of Sagehunter. The two cats jumped apart at the same moment. Knight stood, legs braced, facing Sagehunter and heaving for breath. Sagehunter faced him just as resolutely, just as winded. When they broke apart, Sagehunter ended up in the way of Knight's path to Dane. It was luck, pure chance, but she recognized her fortuitous placement and held her ground. She would not let him pass.

Knight spat and roared and swatted at Sagehunter in frustration and anger. Sagehunter roared back and crouched, ready to pounce on him again if he tried to run or get around her.

Knight snarled and paced, head low and eyes intent on Sagehunter… studying her as he might a rival, an opponent. Sagehunter met his challenge, eyes just as unflinching as she leveled a glare at Knight. Masters of two domains clashed in neutral territory, the lord of the jungle and the empress of the savannah matched against each other on the snowscape. Neither could say how such a confrontation would end.

A menacing growl rumbled up from the depths of Knight's throat. Sagehunter gave a low-thunder growl in answer. The hairs on the back of their necks were erect, their muscles quivering, and always they watched one another with singular intent.

Then they heard the sound of cloth slapping in the wind and a familiar smell filled the air. For a time, both noted it but refused to take their eyes off the other. Then the sound grew louder and the scent stronger. Knight broke first the stand-off first to look for the intrusion, as the scent was coming up quickly from behind him.

From seeming midair, Ron appeared, throwing off a blanket and jumping from his broom, only to stumble from his high-speed dismount crying, "Don't eat me! It's me, Ron!"

For a second, the introduction of a wizard on a broom was utterly out of place in the battleground for jaguar and lioness. Knight blinked at Ron, glanced at Sagehunter who was clearly just as baffled, then he changed back to Harry.

"Ron?" Harry asked.

Sagehunter stepped forward, stepped into Hermione… but she was not looking at Ron. She still had eyes only for Harry, but not in a romantic sort of way. She marched right up to him and punched Harry in the shoulder.

"_OW_!"

"You idiot! What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

Harry scowled at Hermione, who was standing beside him with clothes and hair sopping wet, a bruise blooming on her jaw, and her hands on her hips in a pose of pure fury as her eyes blazed at him. For once, she was no less a lioness for having resumed human form.

"I wasn't going to wait around for Voledmort to kill Sirius because he's not part of the 'bigger picture'."

"Did you even listen to a word Dumbledore said? To a word _I_ said?"

"I can't leave him to Voldemort!" Harry bellowed. "I know you all seem to think it's the only thing I _can_ do, but you're wrong!"

"V-V-Voldemort…" Ron gasped from his knees in the snow.

"Sirius knew the risk involved in going against Voldemort. Merlin, he's done it before! He spent years in Azkaban for tangling in the affairs of Voldemort during the war! He would not have done it again if he didn't fully understand the danger _and accepted it_."

"V-Voldemort…" Ron choked.

"Bugger that. Maybe _I'm_ not ready to accept that I just stood around while my godfather died," Harry shot back acidly.

"Vol-Voldemort," Ron blurted, louder this time.

"What?!" Harry and Hermione turned as one to snap at Ron.

Ron gulped in air. "Voldemort's… at Hogwarts… right now."

Both Harry and Hermione went stone still.

"He's… there," Ron gasped.

"_What_?" Hermione noticeably paled, and Harry had no caustic retort to fling at her. "How do you know?"

"Marauder's Map told me," Ron said, at last catching his breath.

Harry and Hermione looked in shock at one another. "But… but he's supposed to be in Dane," Harry stammered.

Hermione gasped when it suddenly made horrifying sense to her. "Oh, no! Harry, it was a trap! A trap no matter what you did. He _let_ Aberforth escape to get word to us about his location. He _counted_ on you finding out what happened to Sirius and forcing this issue. Damnit, Voldemort set you up regardless of what you decided to do. He'd have you captured at Dane when you went to save Sirius or he'd capture you at Hogwarts when attention was focused on Dane!"

"Come again?" Ron asked, bewildered by the leap Hermione had made.

"Think, Ron. Voldemort's never come near Hogwarts himself because he was scared of Headmaster Dumbledore, he knows he can't take him on single-handed, but—"

"Dumbledore's not at Hogwarts," Harry said sickly, "he's at Hogsmeade putting together an attack force. An attack on a decoy."

Hermione nodded. "Leaving the school vulnerable. And if you went to Dane, Harry, you'd be walking into the unknown… who knows what kind of ambush they had planned for you if you showed up to rescue Sirius."

Harry would throw up about that later. Now, he had a choice. Sirius or those left behind at Hogwarts.

In the distance, like a tree crashing to the ground, there was an explosion that thundered through the air and seemed to vibrate up through the bottoms of their feet. It came from the direction of Hogwarts. All three looked back toward the school in distressed, gloomy silence.

Harry went over to Ron where the redhead still knelt in the snow and extended his hand to help his friend to his feet. When Ron was standing Harry looked first at him, then at Hermione. They were both watching him closely to learn what he would do. Somehow, it was left up to him. With finality, Harry said, "We have to go back."

Hermione was stolid in her resolve. She would not argue this time. Ron looked ill but he gave a nod just the same.

"Dumbledore was right," Harry said gravely, "this all ends today."


	62. Chapter 62

A/N: I don't know how necessary this is, I didn't think it was that bad, but in case others would disagree with my estimations be forewarned that there is gore and violence in this chapter.

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They returned to the school much as they had left it, Harry and Hermione as Knight and Sagehunter for the greater speed it gave them when covering ground, Ron on his new Cleansweep with the invisibility cloak balled up under one elbow. They'd all agreed it would be pretty pointless for Ron to cover up on the way back. In the company of a jaguar and lioness, a wizard on a broom (particularly in the vicinity of a magical school) would be the less conspicuous sight for a passerby to notice of the trio. It seemed ludicrous for him to try and hide under the cloak.

It seemed to take an unbearably long time, since Knight and Sagehunter had barely had a chance to catch their breaths after their initial race then their ensuing tussle before they were asked to run again, but they were at last coming upon landmarks they knew with great familiarity. Then it was caution that slowed their pace.

They ducked into the cover of the forest as soon as they possibly could and stuck to the trees, avoiding open areas and roads leading to the great castle. The senses possessed by Knight and Sagehunter aided in their undetected approach to the school.

As they crept close to the tree line, knowing they might have to discuss and formulate a plan of action, Knight and Sagehunter returned their forms to Harry and Hermione. Together, the three friends crouched to avoid being spotted by the enemy and took in the scene before them. They could see that the explosion they had heard from afar had effectively deprived Hogwarts of its hospital wing. Hermione clutched Harry's arm tightly when they saw the rubble that stood where once the hospital wing jutted from the castle proper. The pinch of her fingers on his bicep said all that he was thinking. 'Aberforth, Kimmy, Pomfrey'. Only as an afterthought did the fate of Draco Malfoy, lying witlessly in a bed of his own inside the hospital wing, flit through his mind.

But there was no time to worry about those that might very well already lay dead amid the stone and debris of the hospital wing. There were people still alive that demanded Harry's attention, though from the looks of things they might not stay that way for long.

The area in front of the main entrance to Hogwarts was full of people. The great doors of the castle were shut and the enormous portcullis down, but that served little purpose considering the hole blown in both that had granted the attackers access to the school. It looked as though the wood and iron had been little more than paper that a giant fist had punched through.

Students and teachers alike were gathered on the grounds, held in a cluster like sheep surrounded by a circle of wolves. Black wolves, Death Eaters in coal-colored robes with skull-like masks, who paced a bloodthirsty noose around the survivors of the initial raid. There should be more than those who were pressed together in a knot of fear, Harry noted with cold certainty. Were any of them just missing, or were all unaccounted for individuals dead? Harry surveyed the scene, touching the jaguar to better see the situation that lay before them.

The first to draw Harry's eyes amid the captives were those that were no longer standing. Lavender Brown was on her knees, crying as she clung to a limp body sprawled partially over her lap. From her tears, it could only be Oliver. Harry wondered if the elder Gryffindor had tried to do something bold and fatal, like protect Lavender in a display of gallantry. If he had, he'd managed only to pay for it with his life.

McGonagall was crouched down, shielding a waif of a student (Merlin, had Harry ever been _that_ small?) with her arms while trying to tend to her injuries at the same time. The little first-year was bleeding from the head and seemed on the verge of falling at any moment. Ginny was among the prisoners, she was hard to miss with her red hair. She was hurt. Harry couldn't see for certain how badly, but she was holding her right hand up to her chest, cradling it. From where they stood, it was not the color it should have been. Not flesh-toned but black and red. She was hunched over, whether from internal injury or just the agony in her arm he couldn't say. Whichever was the case, Ginny had not let the pain drop her. She was standing as best she could, never taking her eyes from the human jackals circling the huddled survivors.

Ron tensed at Harry's right. He'd seen his sister and the state she was in, though assuredly not as well as Harry saw it. To Ron's credit, a sharp intake of breath was all he did in reaction to the sight. Harry half feared Ron would dart out in blind anger to try and defend his little sister. Instead, Ron held himself still and waited, watchful and alert.

Hannah Abbot was curled in a ball on the ground, shivering and crying and holding her torn clothes to her body with a palsy grip. Harry didn't want to think of what had been done to her, not when there was a beautiful young witch next to him, looking to enter into the same fray as he. Professor Flitwick was trying to comfort Hannah, with the one arm left to him, but she flinched away from him every time he tried to touch her.

Snape was still alive, but his privilege to the status of being counted among the living seemed on the cusp of being revoked. He'd been singled out from the other professors for reasons that hardly needed clarification. He was apart from the pack of Hogwarts survivors, on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. The Death Eaters were striking him mercilessly, with hand, fist, wand, knife… anything they fancied. They were playing with him, trying to draw a cry from him with every blow. Harry had to credit the Potions master his damnable arrogance… he wasn't cracking to their whims or giving them the pleasure of his scream. Though his face was bloody and bruised, he did not give them the satisfaction of breaking.

Professor Sprout was standing before a quartet of frightened students, like a mother bear looking after her cubs. She had her arms splayed wide, guarding her charges, what of the survivors she could handle claiming as her responsibility. When a Death Eater came too close she kicked and yelled at him… the Death Eaters seemed to delight in watching her have a fit, like a tethered mad dog, and goaded her, counting coup by jumping in and poking her with the ends of their wands only to sidle away with a laugh before her feet could catch them.

Hagrid was nowhere in sight, and that did not bode well for the massive groundskeeper. He would not have run with the school in danger. He would not have abandoned the students to save his own life. Harry decided that their dear Hagrid was probably dead, very likely slain trying to save Fang from the Death Eaters when they came busting down his hut's door. It would be just the sort of thing Hagrid would do, putting himself last even after a dog. Harry noted that there was no sign of Fang, either, and he lamented for a second that Hagrid had failed. Had Hagrid been alive, he would have been terribly aggrieved to learn his Neapolitan mastiff had been killed.

There were only eight Death Eaters in all by Harry's count, but over a collection of women and children well enough to subdue the school. Though not without a fight. It seemed the initial vanguard against Hogwarts had consisted of more than eight Death Eaters… those who had fallen victim to the defensive fervor of the residents of Hogwarts, doubtless professors and students alike, were strewn in the snow, still as death in the lovely white drifts.

Valiant, but not enough.

Harry's every hair stood on end and his nerves seemed to crackle with electricity and the scar on his forehead burned like fire when a black-clad figure emerged from the hole in the castle's doors. It emerged from the shadows like a Dementor, self-assured and unapologetic. Death's harbinger and without possessing the barest fraction of regret for commanding such a dark purpose.

Voldemort.

He breezed down from the ruined school, as easily as one might step out for an afternoon stroll. He glanced toward Snape, beaten and bloody on the ground but still refusing to scream, and appeared bored with the whole affair. "Enough of this," Voldemort said, and with a flick of his wand Snape gargled and seized when a gash was opened in his throat from ear to ear. Blood poured from his neck, lost in the black of his robes, then he toppled face-first into the snow.

Students cried and pressed closer together as they watched the professor die. Harry held a hand to his head, trying to function past the blinding pain in his scar.

Hermione leaned in closer to Harry and whispered in his ear, "What do we do now?" Ron glanced over at his companions to hear the answer to the barely breathed question.

Harry shook his head and rubbed at his scar, his heart a pulsing lump in his throat. What to do? He didn't know.

Voldemort glanced at one of his Death Eaters loitering nearby and gave a nonchalant tick of his head, like a master bidding a butler to answer the door. The masked man nodded obedience and reached into the cluster of survivors. They moved away from him as one like a school of fish shying from a seal, and he pulled a squirming, fighting, frightened boy from the crowd.

McGonagall said sharply, "Stop this! Do what you will to us, but let the children go!"

"And _why _would I do that, my dear professor? Would you have me believe a _child is harmless_?!" His words started off calm and smooth as venom sliding the length of a knife's blade, but at the end he was yelling. Mad. Completely mad with hate and evil.

"Now," Voldemort turned to the student who'd been brought before him. "Since Professor Snape was most unhelpful, I ask you… is Harry Potter here?"

Harry tensed and his teeth ground together.

The boy shook his head feebly, sobbing and shaking as he wailed in reply, "I don't know!"

Voldemort tisked disapprovingly, "Filthy lies," and with an easy slash of his wand the boy gagged and screamed and coughed out his tongue. Blood dribbled from his mouth to the snow where his tongue lay between his trainers. Soon after, yellow stained the snow at the boy's feet.

Harry shivered in fury. It was like watching a nightmare unfold but knowing he could not simply wake up and make it stop.

Harry was watching in horror the travesty playing out on the school grounds, trying desperately to think of something he could do. What in the name of _Merlin_ could a fifteen-year-old boy do to stop the torment and torture he was seeing? He was so intent on the scene before him that he almost missed the sound of scraping bark to his left. Were it not for the jaguar heightening his senses, he may not have heard it at all, not until it was too late, for neither Hermione nor Ron gave any indication that there had been a sound.

Harry glanced over, past Hermione, into the branches of the trees beside them. A sliver of light reflected off the glassy, lifeless eye of the huge python that had slithered from the trees and was poised in the shadows a matter of inches from Hermione where she was crouched, unaware of the snake's presence as she watched the tragedy that had befallen their beloved school.

The snake had snuck up on them while they watched their classmates and professors cower; it was within striking distance of the closest of the three friends… that person being Hermione.

Harry breathed in.

Nagini flicked her tongue out to savor the air and its flavor of a healthy young woman. The python was intent upon Hermione so very close to her ready jaws. "_Sssssssssweet_," the snake hissed in hungry anticipation. The word sliced through Harry's brain in sibilant parseltongue, an alluring language turned vile and malicious by the creature that spoke it.

Nagini coiled to strike.

On instinct, before he could even think, Harry grabbed Hermione, jerked her toward him and away from the snake, and in a second had his wand drawn and was shouting "_Reducto_!" even as Nagini lunged for Hermione's tender flesh, fangs bared.

The explosive spell boomed around the three friends hiding in the woods. Nagini crashed to the forest floor, a tremendous length of snake missing a head. Her body continued to writhe as Hermione, realizing how close she'd been to death, scrambled back out of the way and stared at the headless serpent.

Ron whimpered and drew his wand, for all the good it would do now against a dead attacker.

When they collected themselves enough to turn their attention back toward the scene playing out before Hogwarts, they found every eye turned in their direction, those of the Death Eaters and Voldemort included.

Harry froze with dread when the implications of that hit him like a punch in the stomach.

"I know you're there, Harry Potter!" Voldemort called in a slimy, insolent tone.

Harry's heart was hammering in his ribcage. The three friends looked at one another, motionless and lost for what would constitute the right thing to do in their predicament.

"Come forward or watch everyone here die!" Voldemort followed his threat with a wand pointed at the frail child in McGoangall's arms. Green flared. The professor gave a sharp cry of protest and alarm when the child collapsed in her hold, dead before McGonagall could do a thing to stop it.

Harry looked at Hermione, desperate and apologetic all at once, but Hermione only gave him a grave nod and was the first to step from their cover of the forest. Harry and Ron were quick to follow her.

Death Eaters were swarming around them instantly. Hermione and Ron were stripped of their wands. When one of the Death Eaters tried to take Harry's wand, Voldemort stopped him. "No. Not Potter's. Leave him his wand. Harry and I have a duel to finish."

Harry's scar was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, but the pain was nothing compared to the fear he felt for his friends as they were separated from him.

Harry watched helplessly as Hermione and Ron were herded into the pack of Hogwarts survivors by their Death Eater escort, then he looked purposefully toward Voldemort. Harry approached the dark wizard with insides quaking, but he did not let his terror show. He dare not. It would only work against him. It could only mean he might get his friends killed or tortured if he showed weakness. He didn't look to Hermione or Ron again for fear they would suffer for his hapless glance. Let them be just classmates in the eyes of the Death Eaters… anything but the best friend and the love of Harry Potter.

Voldemort gave Harry a vicious smile, as though he were a long-awaited guest at a gruesome party. "Why, Harry… has it only been a few months? I would have owled, but you've been cursedly difficult to track down these days."

Harry stood tall before the dark wizard, quelling any tendency he felt inside him to be afraid. And he very much had a tendency to be afraid as he faced Voldemort again, the first time since the man had inflicted the Cruciatus upon him. "You have me now, Voldemort… let the others go."

"Oh…" Voldemort looked to his captives calculatingly, looking as though Harry had asked nothing more important than that he put out the dog. "Oh, I'm afraid that won't do at all."

Harry swallowed and stumbled on his words. "You… you said if I surrendered you wouldn't kill them." He cursed how halting his voice sounded to his own ears.

"Well, didn't you hear the pretty words you wanted to hear then? I said come forward and you wouldn't have to watch them die. You can't very well do that if you're dead first, now can you?" The dark wizard gave a bare shake of his head, looking a tad amused by the very idea. "Let the others go. Really, Harry… did you think I would show such a _Dumbledore-like_ weakness?" Voldemort smiled cadaverously.

Harry spared his own glance at his huddled (and equally doomed) classmates and professors. He let himself seek out his friends only from the corners of his eyes. Hermione and Ron had wormed their way over to Ginny and were bracing her from either side. McGonagall looked close to tears as she watched Harry as he confronted Voldemort… close to tears, but she did not cry. McGonagall was too formidable to cry, but fear was not beyond her capacity to experience. Flitwick was favoring his side where he'd been dismembered, but it had not killed the fire in his beady gaze. Harry had never seen Professor Sprout look so bulldog in her ferocity. Harry had never truly realized before that moment just how much his professors were warriors… warriors who would take up arms at that very instant, but ultimately warriors left without weapons or a means to fight.

"Your wand, Potter," Voldemort snapped testily.

Harry jerked his eyes back to the dark wizard and he itched to draw his wand on reflex. He forced himself to reach for his wand slowly and to draw it deliberately from his back pocket. He didn't want to risk Voldemort presuming Harry was trying to pull a fast one and kill him before he'd even managed to arm himself. It granted him only a handful of seconds, but when they may be the last he would live to see, every second mattered. "We'll duel if that's what you bloody want," Harry said evenly, "but there's no reason to keep the others."

"You see, but there _is_ reason. First, they'll watch me kill you once and for all, the famous Harry Potter, then they'll die. Then I'll have your corpse strung up in the Great Hall over that meddling old fool's chair. _Their_ bodies," he gestured at the whimpering prisoners, "shall attend you; the Great Hall was built for students to fill, after all." Voldemort sighed wistfully. "What I wouldn't give to see the look on the muggle-lover's face when he walks into his precious Great Hall to see his tables of lifeless students and professors, but most of all, _you_. Let his failure look down upon him every minute of the rest of his life, short as that will be. Never again shall he presume to think he can defy _me_!" Voldemort moved to stand directly across from Harry, setting the stage for a one-on-one match. "Elegant in its simplicity, don't you think? And I should think the message will be quite clear. Now," Voldemort gave an elaborate bow, black robes billowing. Harry could not mistake the gesture. Voldemort invited the final duel, the last show-down between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. A part of Harry railed; he'd hoped he'd have more time before it came down to this.

The students and professors watching nearby went deathly silent, each seeming to understand they were about to watch history be born, regardless of which way the winds of fate blew today. A terrible or glorious moment remained to be seen, but an unforgettable turning point in magical history either way.

They would see Harry Potter defeat Lord Voldemort, or they would see the Boy Who Lived die. Harry couldn't begin to predict which outcome would prevail. But he need not speculate, because the moment was upon him. He'd know soon enough.

Voldemort rose from his faux-courteous bow and eyed Harry.

Harry tensed, his spine stiffened, but he knew if he didn't bow as a proper dueling partner would to his opponent he would only be forced to do it with a stab of pain in his gut. He'd danced this deadly waltz before, and he'd just as soon avoid needless, pointless agony. With rigid muscles, he dipped just barely at the waist.

Voledmort smiled. "Shame that it's only before your death that you learn your manners," he said lowly. "Farewell, Harry Potter."

Voldemort brought up his wand, almost too fast for Harry to react, but the jaguar was quicker than the young man and it took control of his hand. Harry's wand rose in a split-second to meet Voldemort's attack.

"_Avada_ _kedavra_!"

"_Expelliarmus_!"

For a surreal moment, a second of time that stretched to the end of eternity, it was like the graveyard all over again. Light leapt from each wand tip, great snaking ropes of liquid light that rushed together as brother wands embraced one another. There was a flash of light when kin magic met, the power in the wands flared against each other…

Then the white light turned a savage red and raced back toward Harry's hand as the disarming spell backfired. Harry cried out sharply when the light of the _priori incantatum_ engulfed his wand and crackled in a biting snap of pain against his inner wrist. It was as though lightning itself had reached down and licked white-hot heat straight into his bones.

Harry dropped his wand and grabbed his right wrist with his left hand. Vaguely, as though from a telly left on in another room, he heard gasps and screams from his classmates, his friends, his teachers. He heard the Death Eaters laughing. More than anything, though, he heard Voldemort cackle in glee.

"Problem with your wand, Potter?"

Harry looked down to where his wand lay in the snow and stared stupidly a moment as he wondered who had replaced his wand with a fake. The wand at his feet was blackened and charred, smoking in the snow. That couldn't be his wand, his wand was not that color… but he knew the burned length of wood _was_ his wand. And that it was useless now.

He looked up in abject horror at Voldemort, who was smug with pleasure. The Death Eaters were closing tighter around them, around him and the Hogwarts survivors, sensing the impending death stroke. Harry darted a look around at Voldemort's supporters drawing nearer, and then he looked to the crowd that stood poised to watch him murdered. He saw faces full of terror, each face so alike in the fear it wore that they may as well have been one face with one expression. Harry caught Hermione's eye where she stood at the periphery of the group of students. She was watching him, and there was some fear in her eyes, some, but there was something powerful and commanding, too. Something decisive and purposeful that woke something in Harry, drove from his thoughts the mind-numbing, muscle-paralyzing idea that he was about to die. Not yet. Not just yet, he still had Hermione waiting for him. He had a _life_ to live with her, and he would _not_ let Voldemort rip it from him.

Harry turned his eyes back to Voldemort, the pain in his wrist subsiding to a fiery ache… he willed himself to ignore it, he could ache later, when he lived. Harry straightened from his shocked posture of unexpected pain and mortal fear. He drew back his shoulders and stood unflinching before the dark lord. He had nothing to throw at the wizard, but still he grew unafraid before the very monster that had killed his parents and set the events leading to this exact moment in motion.

Something flickered in Voldemort's eyes at Harry's drastic change in manner. He didn't like the newfound confidence in Harry, but he was not about to think the boy could do anything but die. He would strike down impudence as well as anything else, though from the glower that claimed his hideous features it was not nearly as sweet a thing as the death of a terrified victim. Voldemort was annoyed that he would be denied the pleasure of his victim's pure, thick terror before dying, but it would not turn his course.

Death Eaters crept ever closer, slavering for the kill like omega dogs begging at the alpha's frothing muzzle.

"Time to join your father and mudblood mother," Voldemort snarled in distaste at Harry.

Harry tensed in readiness.

"_Avada_ _kedavra_!"

Harry gave over his form to Knight. Knight leapt with agility and power beyond human to the side as the green light of the killing curse scorched a black hole in the snow where once a boy named Harry Potter stood.

Knight's leap of escape flung him at a Death Eater. He could see the man's eyes widen through the holes of his mask, showing the whites around the irises, as Knight slammed into him, claws burying themselves in the Death Eater's chest as they both dropped to the ground with a dull thump. Knight did not remove his claws from the man's chest, instead he dug them in deeper. And he ripped. With all his might he ripped. He tore through robes and skin and muscle and bone and the killer under his claws flailed and twitched but, in the end, died. It seemed to happen in a single second.

"_What is this_?!" Voldemort screamed in indignation as he watched his minion torn to pieces before his eyes.

Knight whirled atop his corpse dais and roared at Voldemort, teeth bared and claws red with blood.

For a moment, cat eyes met eyes that were the nearest to snake as a man's could ever be.

Then Voldemort went mad with rage. "_Kill them all_!"

Knight looked sharply to the cluster of Hogwarts students… only to see a ferocious lioness lunge from the crowd at a Death Eater who'd made the mistake of standing too close. He brought up his wand to fling a hex at the lioness in self-defense, but Sagehunter was too quick, too fast to be bested by human reflexes. She surged past his defenses, closed her strong jaws around his neck, and with a jerk she tore out his throat. He closed his hands around his ruined, bleeding neck as he fell to the ground with a wet wheeze.

Then everything began to move at once. McGonagall and Sprout started yelling at the students to run, herding them away from the thick of the newly erupted battle while the Death Eaters tried to make sense of the beasts suddenly let loose in their midst. Three of the Death Eaters came to their senses enough to realize their prisoners were attempting an escape and they moved to stop the fleeing students. They were met by fierce fists and feet from professors striking out at the attackers while the students ran for cover.

Ron tackled a Death Eater who had the ill fortune to try and stop the escaping captives by grabbing Ginny as she moved past. Ginny wretched free of the Death Eater's hold and then Ron was on him, clobbering him with fists and kicking fiercely and screaming incoherently the entire time. Ginny was standing a few paces away, wide-eyed at her brother's rage, but when the Death Eater reached for his fallen wand she leapt forward and stomped repeatedly on his hand.

Knight looked around sharply for his next target. Sagehunter had felled another Death Eater. She'd hamstringed him and he was lying on the ground on his stomach, screaming as the lioness crept up his back with unsheathed claws sinking into his body like a cat treading along the back of a couch. Another Death Eater took aim at her with her wand.

Knight streaked toward the Death Eater targeting Sagehunter, a blur of black fury, and toppled the diminutive Death Eater with hardly a bit of effort. Knight clamped his teeth around the slim neck and bit down. He didn't tear out her frail little throat, but his long canines piercing the thick, sweet jugular veins served just as well. Blood filled his mouth, a rushing warm staccato against his tongue, and the struggling body in his grasp began to twitch and jerk without purpose. With a thick crunch and a sudden give under his teeth, his prey ceased to twitch.

A sear of pain tearing across his shoulder made Knight scream and loose his hold on the Death Eater's thin neck. Knight looked up to see Voldemort staring across the distance at him, venom in his eyes, his wand drawn. Knight smelled blood, and from the pain he knew it was his own. He knew he was hurt, but the adrenaline in his veins prevented him from feeling it beyond the first shock of injury. If it did anything, it only stoked the fire of his rage.

He growled and turned slowly to face his enemy.

For a second, the two stared at one another amid the activity buzzing around them, sizing the other up, each resolving to end the other's life.

A flash of brown from the edge of his vision caught Knight's eye… as well as Voldemort's. Both spared a glance to see Sagehunter chasing down a Death Eater who'd turned and fled.

Voldemort raised his wand… but not at Knight.

Knight screamed in sudden understanding, in panic, but it was too late. Sagehunter took to the air, claws extended as she sought her prey, reached for all-too-frail human flesh to snare with fang and claw. The curse from Voldemort's wand caught her across the back, a gash raced across her flesh and tore open a bloody valley in her skin, and she gave a piercing scream. Blood splattered across the white snow. She was twisted in the air from the force of the curse hitting her, cart wheeling, like a kitten tossed from a moving car. She flipped and landed on the ground with a sickening thud. And she didn't move.

Knight roared. His vision went red with unparalleled anger. Pure animal rage swallowed him whole.

Voldemort, smiling equally from self-satisfaction and anger, turned back toward Knight to finish him.

Knight raced straight for Voldemort, mindless of anything but making the kill.

Voldemort aimed his wand with unconcerned aplomb. Knight wasn't doing anything to try and dodge the blow; he was charging blindly toward the dark wizard. He would be an all-too-easy target. Voldemort, aglow already with his victory, bellowed, "_Avada_—" but before another sound could slip his lips, his wand flew from his hand. It jerked away from his grip as though plucked by an invisible hand. Voldemort looked in confusion at his empty hand a split second, looked in the direction his weapon had gone, then he turned wide eyes on Knight when the swiftly encroaching danger registered in his sadistic mind.

The black beast was upon him.

It all happened in less than five seconds, five fateful marks of time, but five seconds of forever for the locked foes.

Knight rose up before the dark wizard, drew back a great foreleg and clawed paw, and raked it down across Voldemort's body with an ear-splitting scream.

Voldemort screamed… in pain. Four ragged slash marks tracked across his skin. His robe was shredded and torn open, revealing sun-starved, rent pale flesh. Claw marks opened Voldemort from shoulder to hip in diagonal slashes, cuts that immediately bloomed red and spilled over with blood.

Steam rose from the hot wounds on Voldemort's torso, laid open to the cold winter air. Blood fell to the snow as the dark wizard staggered backward.

Death Eaters stopped in their tracks at their master's cry. McGonagall and Sprout, hurrying around the corner of the wall behind which they'd sequestered the children under Flitwick's watch, both witches now armed with branches and rocks to take up the battle as best they could without their wands, stood dumbly and gaped in shock. Ron, straddling his unconscious foe, twisted at the waist and stared at the great dark wizard bleeding all over the snow of Hogwarts grounds. Ginny was stock-still and watching with a bloodless pallor to her skin and a flicker of revenge in her eyes. Knight stood, unflinching, watching his bloodied adversary flounder like the pathetic creature he was.

Voldemort dropped to one knee. He braced himself with a hand while his other tried to hold in his pouring blood. A sharp, offensive scent revealed that Voldemort's intestines had been punctured. The dark wizard staggered, his blood spreading in a vivid rose-red stain on the snow, and he looked up into Knight's cold eyes. With the evil wizard on his knees, he was at eye-level with the black jaguar.

Knight stared back at him, standing with the unflinching righteousness of an executioner. There was no boy there, only a killer animal looking down upon his dying prey. The infamous Lord Voldemort reduced to nothing more imposing than a deer, kicking feebly and bleeding out.

The greatest evil in the wizarding world was nothing more than a wounded animal waiting to die.

And from his face, his twisted, nearly inhuman expression, he knew it. If there was one thing Voldemort knew intimately, it was death.

"The Boy…" Voldemort wheezed sardonically, "Who Lived."

Voldemort managed a weak, sinister smile of pointed, stained teeth.

Knight moved in the blink of an eye. He leapt on Voldemort, threw him to the ground, and took the dark wizard's throat in his jaws. He clamped down, teeth sinking through skin and muscle and bone, and vile, bitter blood filled his mouth. The monster even tasted rotten. Voldemort writhed and struggled against the big cat's grip, he scratched desperately at Knight's face, his neck, anything his hideous hands could reach. Knight only bit down harder.

And then the fighting stopped, the body in his jaws went limp, and the nauseating blood stopped pumping warm and foul into his mouth.

For a moment, the world held still as the black jaguar stood with his kill trapped in his vice-like teeth.

Then Knight, still in a rage at the thing he had brought down, savaged the remains of evil. He yanked and he pulled and he tore, bracing the body against the ground with one splayed paw, until the sinew and tissue gave out, until it ripped apart like a frayed string pulled too tight.

Stepping back, Knight dropped the head of Voldemort to the snow along with a mouthful of scarlet blood. Sightless, slitted eyes stared up at Knight from the detached head, the mouth frozen open in a silent scream before his vocal cords had been severed.

Just like that, Lord Voldemort was no more. A songbird could have coughed a mile away and all those on the front grounds of Hogwarts would have heard it for the complete silence that had befallen everyone.

Knight cared nothing for his stunned mute audience. He left the corpse of his once arch nemesis and hurried to Sagehunter's fallen form a short distance away.

His lioness did not move. She lay in a carpet of her own blood, spilled from the wound that ran nearly the entire length of her back. Knight touched her with his nose, smelled her sweet scent even as he smelled her blood, but she wouldn't move. He could hear air moving through her nose, he could feel her body warmth, he knew she lived… but for how long, he did not know.

He could not handle the thought that they had killed his dear, courageous Sagehunter. It filled him with a blackness thicker than the blood he had tasted from Voldemort's throat.

"_No_!"

Knight turned at once at the mindless cry. A Death Eater had finally realized what had happened, had comprehended the death of his terrible master.

Four Death Eaters still stood, each in shock to see their master slain.

The one to scream took up his wand, fit to blast the murderous black cat to pieces. The others, seeing action and wanting revenge just as desperately, followed suit. Four wands rose as one to strike down Knight. Knight watched them move to attack him, strangely calm at the prospect that they sought to harm him, but knew that their wands brought to bear against him were aimed at Sagehunter, too, as she lay motionless on her side behind him.

They wanted to hurt her, they wanted to curse her, they wanted to kill her.

It shattered every last ounce of control and sanity he had, each so threadbare already and at last taxed to the breaking point by the notion that the vile _creatures_ before him, pale reflections of the human beings they might have once been, wanted his precious Sagehunter dead.

Knight felt a swell of furious anger erupt from deep within him. It billowed like tsunami waves, it swept over him and past him and through him. It became him and shrouded him and it awaited orders, a storm at his command. A weapon in need of a target, lest it tear him apart from the inside out.

He took in a deep breath… and roared.

At first the Death Eaters were merely startled by the sound, it was loud and resonating and blood-curdling… then the nearest Death Eater began to grimace. He tried to keep his wand steady on the cats, but it wavered as his face twisted further in pain. He faltered and a hand came to his chest, clutched at his ribcage the way a stroke-victim might in the throes of an attack as his heart turned renegade. The Death Eater croaked pitifully and dropped his wand. His whimpers turned to cries and he hugged his chest in unbearable pain. Then came the sound of bones cracking. The Death Eater went to his knees, blood sputtered from his lips, and he cried like an animal as his ribcage imploded. His heart was next to tear itself apart in the storm. With a rolling of his eyes, the Death Eater fell to the snow, dead before he hit the ground, his torso falling inward like a gelatinous mass with no inner structure to support it.

The other Death Eaters suffered similar, simultaneous fates. One clutched at his head in agony, throwing off his hood in his torment. As though the magic were a bug in his ear that he could dislodge. He screamed in pure, untempered pain, until blood leaked from his ears and nose in ruddy rivers. Then his skull cracked, bone collapsed and shattered to pieces as though squeezed in a mighty hand. His head grew disgustingly misshapen, it lost recognizability as that of a human, and he, too, fell dead.

Another's spine was crushed where he stood… he lived a few seconds in a paralyzed, viciously contorted heap on the ground before he died.

The last of the remaining Death Eaters simply fell over and died, but not before she wept blood-red tears and vomited a pool of crimson on the ground.

No one who was not a Death Eater felt so much as a headache, but they watched what happened to the enemy.

Knight's roar echoed and died away in the winter afternoon and presently he stood looking at the bodies of the last of Voldemort's attack force against Hogwarts. They were nothing more than corpses littering the snowy ground. Everyone still alive was looking at them… and at Knight.

Knight, ambivalent to their stares, turned again to the only thing that mattered. He gently nuzzled at Sagehunter's neck, the hairs of her mane tickling his nose and playing over his whiskers like fingers on guitar strings. He hoped for any sign of life beyond mere breathing, any movement to indicate that she could tell he was there, but she didn't respond to him.

Knight, lost for what to do, stood over her and cried inside… cried as the jaguar could not, but as the wizard within him could. He didn't know what to do for her. He couldn't leave her. He didn't know what to do without her.

He startled when someone knelt next to him. So consumed with the condition of his lioness had he been that he did not hear anyone approach. He turned his head quickly to find McGonagall kneeling beside him, watching him very closely. Her hair was a wreck, she had a raw scrape on her cheek, and her robes were covered in the blood of her students. She'd never looked so frail in all the time that her students had known her. She looked haggard and battered and weary beyond measure, but her eyes were as sharp as ever as she regarded him intently.

"Harry?" she ventured in a careful, soft voice. It was hardly the McGonagall voice they knew without the confidence and unflappable strength behind it. But that was the least of its vulgarity. Her words struck him like an out-of-tune piano key. It was almost obscene to speak after what had happened only moments ago. There were no fit words to follow what he'd done.

Knight returned the professor's look steadily. He willed her to see Harry inside him, because he couldn't leave Sagehunter.

Perhaps she did, because McGonagall nodded once then turned her full attention to Sagehunter. Knight stood by and let her do it. The professor reached out and examined the wound on the lioness's back with careful, gentle hands. Knight watched over the examination, worried and desperately hopeful. It hurt how badly he wanted something to make Sagehunter better.

After a quick look at the damage, McGonagall turned and shouted, "Mister Weasley! Run up to the headmaster's office! Use his floo to summon a healer from Saint Mungo's! And _be quick_!"

Ron disentangled himself from the Death Eater he'd clobbered, maybe killed, who knew anymore, and took off into the gaping hole of the castle's gates at a dead run. At the prolonged silence from the Death Eaters (due to their gruesome collective demise), coupled with Professor McGonagall's commanding shout, Flitwick and his charges, the remaining students of Hogwarts, peeked out from around the wall where they'd fled when all hell broke loose. They saw at last the carnage that was left of their afternoon gone horrifically south. Their classmates lay strewn among Death Eaters and the beheaded corpse of the darkest wizard of all time.

It meant nothing to Knight just then. There was only Sagehunter.

While McGonagall watched with concerned eyes, Knight circled Sagehunter to put his nose an inch from hers, smelling her breath and studying her still face. Her lips and chin were red with the blood of the Death Eaters she'd stopped before she was struck down. Her courage and heroism was a ruby red badge on her muzzle and staining the hair of her mane.

With tenderness, Knight licked her brow and then he laid down in the snow to wait for her.


	63. Chapter 63

The staff at Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was accustomed to strange cases coming into their facility in need of saving. With magic there was no telling the kind of predicaments the average witch or wizard could find themselves in… there were even more ways for a magical person to hurt himself or herself than a muggle, if truth be told, and the staff at Saint Mungo's saw it all. But even still, when the main fireplace used for extreme medical emergencies belched green flames and spat forth its travelers, the nurses and doctors gave a squawk at the entourage that spilled forward.

One of their mediwizards, a young man who had been fetched to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by a rambling redhead before anyone could get a straight answer from him (the particular mediwizard that had been drafted as paramedic had been chosen for the simple fact he was closest to the young redheaded boy when he burst into the hospital), was the first to emerge from the fire… or rather, the first human. Levitating before him was what looked at first to be little more than an enormous ball of brown hair and matted blood. It took a few seconds for the staff to make out the shape of an unconscious lion floating in the air.

Directly on the mediwizard's heels, arriving at the same instant like two components of a single military unit, was a matronly if somewhat tousled woman and the biggest witch's familiar of a cat anyone had ever seen. Next to step from the fireplace was the boy, the wet, disheveled redhead who had absconded with one of their doctors without even bothering to provide a coherent account as to the nature of the emergency that had justified the kidnapping of one of their healers. Lucky for the young man, a frantic wizard flooing in and right back out again with a healer in tow was not too terribly unusual, and it had not caused a panic. Those who healer-nicked tended to return soon enough with the same healer they'd nabbed, as was the case with the rambling redhead and his added crew.

To the Saint Mungo's staff's credit, they took the circus in stride… it was par for the course at a magical hospital.

"Fetch Doctor Manmalis immediately!" the mediwizard commanding the motionless lion called out to his colleagues, "Haste, haste! We have a critically wounded animagus!"

A tendency for stating the obvious was another hallmark of Saint Mungo's, really any hospital. The blood dripping on the tile floor of the lobby from the hovering cat's limp body would suggest it was no mere nap the lion was taking. Also, it would stand to reason that the healer currently wielding his wand in order to hold his patient aloft would not bring a true lion to a witch and wizard's hospital. 'Critically wounded' and 'animagus' declared itself.

But all the obvious aside, action was immediate.

One nurse behind the counter disapparated in an instant to track down the requested specialist.

Another nurse hurried over to the ragged band of fire-bound arrivals. She paid attention first and foremost to her coworker and his injured person-turned-animal. "This way, Doctor, room one-thirteen is open." As the wizard doctor nodded curtly and hurried to maneuver his patient down the hall, the nurse stepped in the path of those who had come through the floo with the lion and healer… for they had all moved, as one, to follow the mediwizard and his feline charge into the bowels of the hospital. "I'm sorry," she said sternly in a kind voice, "but the rest of you will have to wait out here."

The black cat revealed menacing teeth and spat.

The worse-for-wear older woman who had come through the fire settled an unwavering, steely gaze on the nurse standing in their way. She managed to look a hundred times more dignified than the scrape on her face, the torn and bloodied state of her robes, or the unmanaged mess of her hair would have seemed to permit to be possible. In spite of her vagabond appearance, she was a force with which to be reckoned. Much like her bearing, her voice was firm and commanding. "Young lady, Voldemort is dead, killed by Harry Potter."

The nurse's jaw dropped.

The formidable woman pointed at the snarling, bristling panther at her side. "_That_ is Harry Potter."

The nurse continued to gape.

"Stand aside," McGonagall said plainly in a tone that brooked no argument.

Dumbstruck, the nurse could only stammer mutely a moment before taking a step meekly to the left. Without sparing another second, Knight rushed past the nurse and down the hall to catch up with the healer who had left with Sagehunter. He was oblivious to the stir he caused when he charged through on his single-minded mission to reach Sagehunter. Ambulatory patients on walkabouts and healers making their rounds sidled out of the way and pressed against the walls as the black jaguar bowled headlong through the corridor. But the patients themselves were magical folk, the healers part of the desensitized staff of Saint Mungo's, and anything fantastic was taken with a grain of salt, even a loose panther in a hospital hallway.

"There has been an attack on Hogwarts," McGonagall said pointedly to the nurse. When she had the nurse's attention once again, the professor said, "there are wounded students and teachers in dire need of medical attention. Summon as many healers as you can, all the hospital can spare, and see that they're tended to at once."

'Finally', a clinical part of the nurse's mind thought amid the shocking news of Voldemort's reported demise, 'a picture of what was going on to warrant such an uproar as all this'… and an ugly picture it was indeed. A school attacked by Voldemort, children hurt… the audacity of it, the very definition of wickedness and evil. The nurse paused for a fraction of a second to be horrified, but no more. There was work to be done.

She whirled at once to face her coworkers and barked, "You heard her! You Know Who's gone and attacked _children_! Quick, pull together as many healers as we can for a team to leave for Hogwarts right away! _Move it_!"

Everyone jumped and moved, until everyone was moving at once… a furious, frantic, and yet well-choreographed and efficient flurry of activity as the hospital went into high gear.

Watching over it all, like a wolf den mother attending a litter of puppies at play, McGonagall edged over to the wall to get out of the way. She stepped aside to let the experts do their job. She tried to tug Ron along with her, to keep him from impeding the healers and their work, but the fifth year balked and looked up at her imploringly. "Professor… please, I need to go back and see how my sister's doing."

She could hardly fault him worrying about the youngest of the Weasley clan; Ginerva would be among those students receiving medical treatment.

McGonagall gave a consenting nod that sent the banged-up student darting back to the fireplace connecting the hospital to Hogwarts, and soon enough McGonagall alone still stood somber sentry, an observant, statuesque figure on the edge of diligent anarchy.

When she began to believe that, truly, her students would be properly cared for, that she could relinquish their well-beings into better suited hands, she allowed herself the fissure in the armor of leaning back against the wall and letting it take some of her weight. With the lives of so many children on her shoulders in the headmaster's absence, it had been a hefty burden to bear.

Her thoughts turned to easily her two most exceptional students in all her years of teaching. She wondered and worried and waited against the wall of the magical hospital lobby while chaos reined around her for the second time that day.

In room one-thirteen, the mediwizard who had been levitating the wounded lioness hastily lowered Sagehunter on to the bed that dominated the center of the room with one end like the other and the head only given such a label for it abutted against the wall. Sagehunter came to rest on the crisp white sheets and lay still, not even a twitch to indicate she was even aware she had been moved. Knight pushed his way through into the hospital room when the door gave half a notion to close on him. He didn't spare even a backward flick of his ear to find out if he had offended the door. The healer shot a glance at Knight as the panther stormed into the room with him and his patient… all highly irregular, to say the least. Knight stood with feet firmly planted on the floor and looked back challengingly at the mediwizard, his body language screaming that it would take a small military force to budge him from the room. And it would not be done without bloodshed.

The mediwizard was not a soldier, nor did he fancy getting his arm ripped clean off to cater to his sense of professional propriety that demanded medicine be conducted without an audience, so he let the panther be. He'd seen the carnage of the school grounds where he'd been taken to retrieve his current patient, he'd taken in the bodies and their state with a practiced eye even in his hurry… he had not failed to notice the blood on both cats that had not all come from wounds, at least not wounds they themselves had sustained. If the panther would keep to the outskirts and out of the way… well, the mediwizard concluded an unobtrusive spectator was hardly worth risking life and limb.

The healer had other lives and limbs to worry about at the moment.

Mediwizard, panther, and lioness had been alone in the hospital room only a matter of seconds before the door burst open and a portly man with a fringe of white hair that frizzed out like a cob-webbed halo around his head came striding in. "What's the emergency, Will? Louise practically pulled me right off the commode going on about how I was desperately needed, right away and all that, and I do believe she nicked my _Witch Weekly_ when I-! _Merlin's beard_!" the healer had just spotted Knight in the room, standing back from the thick of things but watching every move the doctor made with keen acuity.

"Doctor Manmalis," the younger mediwizard said at once, for the moment dismissing the man's surprise concerning their audience. "It _is_ an emergency; forget your _Witch Weekly_ a sodding second."

"What do we have, then?"

"Just brought this one in. It was a Death Eater attack on an animagus, I _think_. There had been some kind of battle."

Manmalis gave Knight a wary eye then gave him nary another look as he rushed to the bedside of the unconscious lioness. He bent down and studied the large gash on her back. "Oh, that is a right nasty piece of work. Any notion if this beasty is on our side or theirs?" the healer asked, even as he pulled out his wand and began to clean the wound with a modified _scourgify_, revealing that the affiliation of the current patient was more an academic question than a basis upon which to provide treatment.

Will shook his head. "Not really… probably ours, since a Death Eater wouldn't have sent for help at Saint Mungo's, and the lad that grabbed me and pulled me through the floo was hardly Death Eater material."

"Hmmm…" Manmalis breathed in distraction as he scowled at the wound on Sagehunter's back. "Well, from the looks of this I'd say it was cast by a Death Eater. Frightful amount of black magic in this cut. It's eating away at the skin as we speak. A two-tier, if I were to guess. Vile, vicious curse; I don't want to think one of ours could do it."

While the two doctors conferred, nurses began to scuttle into the room to assist. Each gave a jump and a squeak when they first spotted Knight standing watch from near the far wall, but soon enough their own professional proclivities put the panther in the backs of their minds. Soon there was a veritable flurry of activity around Sagehunter's bed, Sagehunter oblivious to it and Knight a distance away fretful and anxious for it.

"What do you think, Doctor?" Will asked his elder, and in many respects mentor, as they both examined the injury. Manmalis waved his wand and spoke a few spells… by Knight's observations, he seemed to invoke the same incantations three times before they took to the doctor's satisfaction. But even then, the mediwizard gave a displeased scowl and shook his head.

"No good. I've stopped the corrosion of her flesh, but it won't do much for healing her. I can't properly treat her magic as she is. We'll have to turn her."

Knight gave a plaintive, involuntary, worried mewling sound in the back of his throat at the decree. The gravity behind the healer's words, the tone of his voice when he spoke the last, revealed what manner of 'turn' he meant, and it was certainly cause for alarm.

Both healers spared half a glance at the panther for his concerned vocalization, as did all the nurses and attendants in the room. When one is in the same room as a panther, every sound it makes is noted.

"Any idea as to who the dark stranger is?" Manmalis asked off-handedly, giving the impression for all the world that he was not overly concerned, or even concerned in the slightest, about the large predator's presence in the room with them (his first expletive when entering the room notwithstanding).

Will gave a helpless shrug and shake of his head. "I know very little of what's going on when it comes down to it. I was yanked into this whole affair and have been jerked hither and yon since. The attack was on Hogwarts, so… a professor, maybe?"

One of the nurses put in gently but pointedly, "Whoever he is, he's obviously worried about her," she ticked her head down at Sagehunter.

"Indeed… I don't suppose there's chance of clearing him out of here?" Manmalis asked.

Knight's stare at the doctor turned lethal, practically daring him to try.

"Thought not, well, then go on, the lot of you, and set up the monitoring charms to keep an eye on the patient when things start getting… dodgy. I'll have a word with our proctor before he thinks to use those dreadfully impressive claws."

Manmalis left his colleagues to prep Sagehunter while he crossed the room and knelt, with creaking knees, on the floor before Knight. Knight watched the doctor with desperation and question in his eyes. The man looked like an odd combination of Dumbledore and Flitwick… if only that dual resemblance to two adept wizards could be construed to speak to his own power and competency.

The old man jumped right into it. "Good sir… I know what you're thinking, and you're absolutely right. It _is_ very dangerous to force an animagus transformation on someone, either the change to animal or the change back to human, and _especially_ so in a weakened physical state such as your friend's. I won't lie to you on that count. But I'm afraid your friend is in no fit condition to change herself, and this is not a veterinary clinic. This is a hospital. The best chance your lady friend has is to be treated as a _witch_. We can't properly take care of a lion here; no one in Saint Mungo's has been a healer apprentice or so much as summer interned at a zoo."

Knight shuffled nervously on his feet, ears back and neck muscles tight to express his disquiet with the proposed course of action all the same, despite the practical reasons for doing it. His anxiety and worry made the hair on the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades bristle and rise.

"I can assure you that I am the foremost specialist in Britain in treating animagi. I've forced the change on many and more patients, and the vast majority pull through. Short of carrying your presently feline friend off to a zoo to let an experienced animal keeper tend to her, you'll find no better doctor to treat her.

"Of course, taking her to a zoo is an option… but I can't speak to her chances of surviving the trip."

"Doctor," Will called, "the monitoring charms are in place; we're ready."

Manmalis looked directly at Knight. "I'm going to force her change now so I can try to save her life. I'd be much obliged if I didn't get a fang in the neck for my trouble." With that, Manmalis stood and returned to the bedside. He went with a self-assured air; he would either get on with his work or be mauled, but he wouldn't let the odds of either against the other weaken his resolve. Knight watched him leave and gave no indication he meant to intercede, despite his worry.

"All right," Manmalis said when he'd rejoined his comrades, "brace her, take care, watch her back, I don't want her rolling over on to that wound when she's changed."

Hands came to rest upon Sagehunter's body, like a mystic healing ritual right from an era past, and Manmalis produced his wand and traced a pattern in the air over the lioness's body. He recited one of the most complex spells Knight had ever heard; Pomfrey had never uttered a tenth of the words that spilled from Manmalis's mouth with precision and ease. Knight would have needed Hermione to have any hope of comprehending the layman's language for most of what the mediwizard chanted.

Everyone tensed in expectation and waited.

The transformation the healer's wand and spell work forced was not normal. In a typical change, when Sagehunter willingly and purposely reverted to Hermione, it happened in the span of a couple of seconds. As Knight watched the doctor cast the spell to force her change, it was slow. It almost seemed to resist the process being imposed by an outside force. Sagehunter sank back to Hermione like a hapless wanderer slipping into quicksand, agonizingly slow and nerve-wracking to witness. The nurses watched with bodies taut and jaws clenched. Knight was not breathing as he waited.

The creature on the bed was not Sagehunter and it was not Hermione, it was some hybrid beast of both, a human shape with claws and fur and tail.

The monitoring charms keeping vigil over the being that was once Sagehunter and which was not rightly Hermione either began to sound all manner of alarms.

Manmalis looked up at them briefly, took in the information they provided with practiced swiftness, but did not stop his spell work.

Finally, the last vestiges of the cat faded away from the bedridden figure's form and the hospital staff stood ringed around a human girl. The nurses held her immobile on her side when she might have been inclined to roll forward or backward in her new shape; for the lioness lying on her side was natural, but that was not true now for the witch.

"Merlin!" Will hissed when he got a proper look at his patient for the first time, "she's just a _kid_!"

Hermione was entirely herself again, but made halfway a stranger for the blood that seemed to cover every inch of her. She was horribly pale, skin chalky and frightfully cadaverous to the eye. Her clothes were in shambles and dirty and stained. Her hair was an even greater mess than usual. She didn't look asleep so much as she looked dead, and that fact was a lance of agony in the attending panther's chest.

Knight perked up to see Hermione fully herself again. He was agitated by the sight she presented. He was alert and restless, and he wished that the noises and lights from the monitoring charms could tell him something about Hermione's condition. As it was, it was only senseless and distressing sounds and colors.

"Turn her on her stomach, gently," Manmalis ordered. When it had been done, the healer magicked away her clothes with a flick of his wand. He seemed to pause at the hint of gold around her neck from the necklace, but a sidelong glance at Knight stilled him from banishing that, too. Finally the staff was given a good look at the extent of the witch's injury… and it was appalling. A great gash opened a shallow sanguine valley in her skin that started at the top of her left shoulder and tracked diagonally across the length of her back to curl into a trailing red welt on her right hip.

To see it, even the most optimistic soul nearly had to ask how the girl could still be alive given her wound.

"There's so much blood," one of the nurses mumbled in near despair as she stared at the red stains that covered Hermione's back, her arms, her face… there didn't appear to be an inch of her spared the tacky fluid. It was a gruesome sight, in all interpretations of the saying a veritable bloodbath. To a trained eye, it would appear hopeless for the patient's chances of survival that she had lost so much blood.

"Not all of it's hers," came another voice from the room's doorway. Knight saw the nurse from the lobby come inside. The two nurses who had spoken last shared an empathizing look then the lobby nurse reported, "I spoke a moment with the woman who arrived with these two. She's a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It seems that You Know Who attacked the school."

A few nurses gasped and whimpered at the mention of the dark wizard. Some paled and croaked for the knowledge a school had been attacked.

"This young woman, Hermione Granger, a fifth year, fought back and managed to kill some of the Death Eaters who were with You Know Who." Then the nurse seemed to pause to brace herself to speak the next bit of news. "You Know Who is dead."

For a second, one could have heard a pin drop in the room. Everyone went absolutely silent. The news was just too enormous to take in without getting tongue-tied and stupid.

The first sound to break the quiet of numb shock was a thin, "Is it true?" when one nurse near Hermione's head whispered tremulously, almost afraid to believe her ears, afraid to give over to such a hope. "Really… he's gone?"

"I know it's almost too much to hope, but I really do believe it is true. Professor McGonagall asked to use our floo to contact some friends in the ministry about seeing to the remains. Apparently, they'll be carrying You Know Who back in two pieces."

Eyes were wide and faces grave all around the bed.

"Oh, thank Merlin," another nurse breathed, "thank Merlin…"

Mute nods echoed the sentiment.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish would be a fantastic understatement for a moment such as this. Who finally dispatched the foul creature?" Will asked.

The lobby nurse looked over at Knight and nodded. "He did. Harry Potter."

All eyes turned to Knight. For a moment, the respect and admiration and devout _love_ that shone from their eyes was crippling.

It was Manmalis who brought everyone back to task with a brisk clearing of his throat. "Ladies, gentlemen? Back to work. Need I stress how _critical_ it is that we save this girl?"

No one had to hear it to understand that fact perfectly well. It didn't take a genius to put together that the young woman on the table was someone very important to Harry Potter, vanquisher of Lord Voldemort. And right then, _no one_ could bear the idea of disappointing the great Harry Potter.


	64. Chapter 64

A/N: We're coming into the home stretch; only four more chapters after this one.

* * *

He could hear every single person that passed anywhere near the room. They might try to be quiet, but it was pointless to try and slip the hearing of the jaguar. He attended to it only as much as he needed to in order to recognize that none of the passers-by were a threat. Beyond that they were a background thrum of noise; he couldn't block them out but he could more or less ignore them. Conversely, his hearing was hanging on every tiny sound of Hermione's breathing on the bed behind him. It was a softer, yet far more important a sound and it filled his auditory senses.

Knight and Hermione were the only two in the hospital room. When Hermione had been treated and stabilized as best as possible, when all that was left to do was wait and see and hope, the doctors and nurses had cleared out. No one even breathed a word to suggest Knight should leave, too. He had uncontested right and privilege to go and do as he pleased among the witches and wizards who knew his true identity and his recent act of salvation on their behalf. He could have strolled into the head healer's office and used his desk as a scratching post and the pompous old coot would not have breathed a word about it, except maybe to offer the great Harry Potter a spot of tea, as he must have worked up a terrible thirst with all that scratching.

Luckily for the head healer, Knight had no intention of budging from Hermione's bedside.

Aside from one nurse stopping in just long enough to see to the cut on Knight's shoulder, they let him be, and he chose to be at Hermione's side. He'd lain down on the floor next to her bed and not moved an inch in the two hours since the healers left them alone.

He was in a trance-like state of stillness, snared to the inhale and exhale coming steadily from the prone figure on the bed. She'd been left to lie on her stomach, a poultice very nearly serving as clothing for how much of her back it had to cover to treat the extent of her injury. She breathed and Knight breathed with her, timed his world to the gentle rise and fall of her torso.

"Albus!" a harried but hushed McGonagall said from just outside the door to Hermione's room.

Knight swiveled one ear forward at the name, a fraction of him mildly curious, though it could not hope to break his tenacious attendance to Hermione's breathing… in… out… as long as it kept doing that, going in and seeping out, his world kept going.

"Minevra…" came the headmaster's grave, deep voice. He sounded bone-tired. It was strange to hear no trace of humor or even vigor in the great wizard's voice. "I came as soon as I was able."

"What of Dane?" McGonagall asked hesitantly. She didn't really want to know, Knight could read it in her flat, elevated pitch.

"A farce, as is all too apparent now, but then hindsight is twenty-twenty and retrospective divination unerring… I am overwhelmed with shame to know I was maneuvered so easily."

"You couldn't have known... we all thought Voldemort was there. We leapt at the chance, what presented itself in the _guise_ of a chance, to strike down Voldemort once and for all. None of us stopped to think your brother would unwittingly be playing a pawn. None of us questioned his escape; after all, he was your brother." A pause. "I'm so very sorry about Aberforth."

A strained quality pulled at Dumbledore's voice, making him almost unrecognizable as the formidable headmaster of Hogwarts. "Thank you. I… I spoke with some of the ministry workers who are assessing the… collateral damage done at the school, in terms of both lost life and property; I envy them their capacity for clinical detachment almost as much as I detest them for it.

"I saw the hospital wing… or what remains of it. I ventured into the rubble… It looks like dear, sweet Kimmy did what she could to protect Aber, but… well…" His trailing silence spoke volumes.

"I am terribly sorry."

"Yes… well, I am hardly the only person to have lost loved ones to this twisted wizard's madness.

"Are the children being properly seen to?"

"Yes. I've been checking on them religiously every few minutes, at least until their parents get here to better watch over them. It's _sickening_, what was done to the poor things. Innocent children. I can hardly stand to think on it."

"I wouldn't suggest you try to. If you can forget, then do it and rejoice in ignorance."

"Would that I could… but I can't."

"I know."

Both were quiet a moment, during which Hermione's breathing was the loudest sound. A breathing life-preserver, a drink of water to a dying man.

"I spoke with young Mister Weasley a moment ago, when I first arrived after visiting the school, and he told me a bit of what happened at Hogwarts."

McGonagall took a few deep breaths, perhaps to collect her wits. "It was _horrible_! The atrocities those… those… it's almost unfit to call them human beings! The things they did, and I was powerless to do anything more than stand by and watch!"

"You did all you could to protect them, Minevra… I'm sure there are children alive this moment who would not have been were it not for you."

"I wish so badly that I can believe that, but… it wasn't I who ended up saving us all."

Another pause overtook the two adults outside the hospital room.

"What is Miss Granger's condition?" Dumbledore asked.

"Touch and go as the saying goes. They've done what they can. She was hurt so _badly_, I... the healers won't even offer up opinion just yet as to her chances. They're that worried that she may not live."

Knight briefly flicked his eavesdropping ear backward so all of his focus was on Hermione's breathing. She was still taking in air, letting it out, taking it in… it was all he could hope for, the place to pin all his hopes.

"Miss Granger is a remarkably stubborn young woman; I daresay she won't accept the release of death until she's good and ready. And she's not ready to give up yet."

"I hope so, Albus, I really hope so. Not only because Miss Granger has so much life yet to live, but for Mister Potter's sake…"

A different kind of silence reigned, one that was tense even from the opposite side of the door.

"Albus… what Mister Pot… what Harry did…"

"I know," Dumbledore returned soberly. "Mister Weasley gave me the unsavory details."

No one seemed to need it said what they were discussing; it was foregone and understood. Knight knew it as well as they did.

"I've never seen wandless magic like that. It was… I loathe to even _think_ it, but… it was dark magic, Albus. Even as I say it I can hardly comprehend it… the very _idea_ that Mister Potter could perform dark magic, magic _that_ dark… but those Death Eaters, they just… died. Harry wanted them dead, and in a matter of moments they just _were_."

"And do you condemn him for it, Minevra?"

"I… 'the end justifies the means', that's what you are going to argue."

"Doesn't it? Or does it ever? We are rid of a cancer in our world, one I can never regret being gone, but at such a high price… Harry can't escape what he's done… nor the fact that not even Voldemort ever managed to do what he did."

"He's just a _boy_…"

"I don't know that he has ever truly been one. Perhaps before his parents were slaughtered, he may have been just a boy then, but not since that night. You misjudge him to see him as a mere child; I've made the same mistake. But he never was. From his first year he was a warrior in an undersized body. Today, we discovered just how great a warrior… and how great a tragedy, but then, most great warriors are."

"Will he be all right?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I honestly do not know. I'm no seer. Maybe he will be, one day… depending on the young woman in that room. Harry might recover, he might stay more or less the Harry we've known for five years… but only if Miss Granger lives. Her fate will make or break him."

McGonagall did not counter right away, but when she did much of the tremulous undertones that had been previously in the voice were gone, reverting to the much more familiar sound of self-assurance of a cool, level-headed professor. "It's almost… the thought that we could stand to lose still more, after all everyone has already lost to this bloody war… no matter what manner of magic they used to destroy Voldemort, no matter how _young_ they are, they're still heroes."

"An honor for which I sincerely pity them, but there's nothing that can be done to spare them that backhanded gift.

"Minevra… there is still a great deal that we should discuss, but for now I must take my leave of you. I need to see Harry a moment."

"Of course. He'll probably be glad to see you're alive. I'll go check on Miss Abbot again. The poor, poor girl."

The sound of McGonagall's footsteps faded away as she left the vicinity of Hermione's room. The jaguar listened to her go but didn't stir himself to care very much. Knight lay unmoved from his spot next to Hermione's bed.

When the door opened Knight looked up lackadaisically. He knew it was Dumbledore, by smell foremost, who had presumed to come inside the hospital room where his Hermione lay defenseless. Dumbledore was not a threat, and outside of Hermione waking up only a threat to his beloved could bestir Knight beyond a simple movement of the eyes and turn of the ears.

The headmaster of Hogwarts was sporting a bruise on his right temple and easily half of his beard was missing, shortened by half its former length and tipped with black, burned ends of hair. Knight could smell smoke and dirt and blood on the wizard. But he was whole, and fit enough to walk away from his scuffle. If only Hermione had been so lucky.

Dumbledore slipped inside the room and closed the door softly behind him. He looked down at Knight and seemed to take stock of the fact that it was not Harry that greeted him, but Knight the black jaguar. Knight watched the headmaster with eyes half glassy. He was so very tired and so very, very careworn. Sleep would be a welcome relief, but if he slept he might stop listening to Hermione breathe… he needed to hear it. If he let down his guard to rest, who would guard Hermione against danger? If a school was not safe from attack, he would not be naïve enough to think that a hospital would be. He could not let her come to harm, no matter what. And if he slept, he might dream of the battle, he might relive the things he'd done. There were too many reasons to stay awake, maybe for the rest of eternity if there was any magic that could make it possible.

Dumbledore moved a few steps closer to the bed and Knight, then he stopped. He looked past Knight to where Hermione lay. After a moment staring at the monitoring charms over the bed, as though they might actually make some sense to him, the great wizard's eyes turned down to Knight. Knight gazed up dully at the headmaster.

Quietly, purposefully, Dumbledore knelt on the floor in front of Knight. The two stared into one another's eyes for what seemed a long time. From their gazes, they might have been mistaken for being the same age.

"Knight," Dumbledore spoke lowly, no trace of a faked cheerfulness or levity in his tone. "This has truly been a glorious and terrible day.

"I want you to remember something. I know, sooner or later, doubts will assail you, questions and ruminations about what you did today to save your friends, and in doing so saving us all. It will be difficult, but remember… you did what you had to do. It is a popular recrimination in the eyes of those who have never had to make such a choice, but you were right in your actions. Trust in that. The world is better off for what you did. And should you begin to question your own inherent goodness, should you find yourself inclined to think ill of your own soul because of what happened this afternoon… before you believe in it, think of how Hermione would see you. Ask yourself if she would see the same wickedness that you do.

"We cannot measure the weight of our own souls, we're blindly tangled and our perceptions usually just as knotted; so we must let our loved ones do it for us. Place your faith in yourself in the hands of those who love you."

Knight studied Dumbledore plainly. He felt only pushed to the point of breaking by it all… he wondered if maybe he _had_ broken and didn't understand it yet for his all-consuming concern for Hermione. Maybe he'd see the irreparable crack in his very essence later. Depending on Hermione, it might not make any difference to him once he did.

The headmaster frowned and continued, "But dolling out reassurances is not the reason I'm here. I understand you have well enough to worry about at the moment, but I feel you have the right to know. I came to tell you about Sirius…"

His manner told Knight the important part, the information that he needed to know, but just the same he waited for Dumbledore to say it. It was a necessary evil… someone had to say it to make it real. He'd just lie and wait for one more stone in the foundation of his world to be torn away.

"We were too late to save him. Knowing all that I do now, I very much doubt Sirius was permitted to live more than a few breaths' span after Aberforth…" Dumbledore paused slightly, "after my brother was allowed to get away with the news of a living captive at Dane. After my brother's intentionally allowed escape, Sirius had served his purpose for Voldemort's Death Eaters." Dumbledore said nothing of any notion that it had been over quickly or painlessly for Sirius. They both knew better. "I am deeply sorry for your loss," Dumbledore said mournfully.

Sirius gone. Dead. Knight wanted it to hurt, he wanted it to matter, but he didn't have room for that much pain when Hermione was filling him with it. He grieved and ached for her first, and _when_ she got better he might have space inside him for a new heartache, a heartache that belonged to Sirius Black. But just now, he couldn't handle more. Hermione was all the agony he could stand. He listened and understood that Sirius was gone, his godfather killed because of him, but he couldn't feel it. It was throwing a pebble at a giant with just as much effect.

Dumbledore was watching Knight closely for his reaction, and when there was none he seemed doubly concerned. He took his eyes from Knight to study Hermione arrayed on the bed behind the jaguar. Then he gave a solemn nod to himself, as if coming to some internal realization.

"I'll give you some time, I know this must all be very overwhelming." Dumbledore stood and headed for the door. Before slipping out as quietly as he had entered, he looked down at Knight and said gently, "Keep watch over her."

As if Knight had to be asked to do that any more than one had to ask him to breathe.

As he asked Hermione to breathe, how he willed her to keep breathing, to keep taking in breaths so he could mark them, count them, thank the universe for each precious one.

His world was broken down to inhales and exhales. It kept him going, kept him sane, kept him whole where otherwise he may have flown apart or folded inward for the evil that he'd touched on the grounds of Hogwarts. It was all secondary to Hermione's breathing.

Inhale and exhale, and the world went on.

* * *

At some point, he dozed. He did not realize he'd slipped into a light sleep until the sound of the door opening jarred him awake as quickly as an explosion just outside the room might have. Knight's ears turned to the sound and he waited, expectant and on the cusp of tensing for action.

The first thing to come into the room was a floating bowl. Next came Ginny. Knight relaxed… as much as he could. He had two states it seemed, primed to tear apart any enemy who might think to lay a hand on Hermione, and the dejected, heartsick waiting of a loved one at a hospital beside. 'Relaxed' did not rightly fit with either state of being.

Ginny closed the door softly behind her with her bum, as her left hand was being used to command the wand that kept the bowl aloft. Her right hand was heavily wrapped in white bandages. She had an intent, concentrated look on her face, like she was struggling through an exam she hadn't properly studied for. She walked the bowl over to where Knight lay and set it down with concerted effort on the floor. Knight saw, when it was before him, that it was a bowl of water.

When it was safely down, Ginny's expression sagged in relief and she finally gave Knight a proper glance. "Hi, Harry… um, I mean… Knight."

Gently, Ginny sat down on the floor right in front of him, her wounded hand cradled near her chest. For a moment, she didn't seem to know quite what to say. She looked long and searchingly at Knight, as though trying to see past the cat to the boy Harry she knew.

Knight wasn't sure that boy existed anymore.

Ginny finally shook out of her stare and put away her wand. She gestured toward the water bowl. "I thought you might want to get cleaned up a bit." She frowned, then reached into her robes and pulled out a folded washcloth. She seemed to hesitate, eyed Knight, then dipped the cloth in the water with her left hand and experimentally wiped it over one of Knight's extended paws. It came away filthy and bloody. Ginny scowled at it, dipped it into the bowl again, and once more gave his paw a wipe. She looked up at him to gauge his reaction, and when she saw that he was going to let her do it she grew more confident and serious in her efforts. She scooted closer and set to her task more earnestly.

Knight watched her silently.

"Sorry to do it this way, but I don't trust myself to do a _scourgify_ with my left hand. Afraid I'd wipe off your toe or something," she gave a flickering smile that held no humor.

Knight dropped his eyes to her bandaged right hand. Curious, he just barely extended his nose toward her injured hand. To Ginny's immense credit, she didn't flinch when the jaguar moved toward her. Instead, Ginny glanced down at her hand when she realized it was what had caught Knight's interest. Then the light came on and she realized what he wanted. "Oh… that." She continued cleaning Knight's blood-stained fur as she said, "When Ron rushed off to fetch you two back to the school, he gave me the Marauder's Map so I could show it to McGonagall. When You Know… when Voldemort and his Death Eaters were sure to catch us, I was afraid they'd take the map and use it to track down everyone in Hogwarts. I knew there were students who would surely find hiding places in the school when they realized what was going on, but if Voldemort had that map he'd find them with no trouble. So I cast an _incendio_ and set fire to the map right in my hand. In my haste, I got a little carried away." Ginny shrugged.

Knight looked intently at her face.

Ginny moved to his other front paw and began to clean that off. "Ron's outside. He wants to come in and visit with you two, but everyone's gone a little mad. They know that Voldemort's been killed, and they know you did it, and _everyone_ and their Cousin Wulgrig wants to see you. The ministry's frothing at the mouth to get you alone. Ron's sending them away…" Ginny smiled. "Very inspiring of him, actually. Mum would be right proud of the way he's putting his foot down, and on a few toes at that. He's taking no cheek from anyone, not even high-ranking ministry officials. The Hogwarts professors and the hospital staff are on his side. The Minister of Magic himself is being sent packing when he sniffs around looking to have a chat with you. It's quite moving, really, you have quite a human shield out there."

For a time, silence descended while Ginny finished tenderly cleaning each of Knight's front paws. Then she moved to his bloody chest. "What you did… that was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. You saved us."

Knight turned his ears back to attend to the sound of Hermione. Still breathing, still alive.

Ginny cleaned his chin and muzzle, swept away the stains of battle on his body. The bowl of water was now brown and red from the grime that Ginny had been wiping off. Pausing in her work, she turned her gaze from his muzzle to his eyes and she leaned in barely closer. "She'll be okay, Harry; Hermione's too unyielding to give up. She'll be fine… you'll see."

Knight turned his head into Ginny's hand and gave her inner wrist a small nudge.

Ginny rose to her knees to incline forward and kiss Knight lightly on the nose. When she pulled away, she gave a shy smile. "Just until Hermione's well enough to do it."

Ginny did the rest of her gentle cleaning duties without saying a word. When she was done, she laid her hand only a moment on Knight's head, then gathered the bowl and cloth and left the room.

Knight dropped his head to rest upon his forelegs and counted the moments, stretching to eternity, by Hermione's breathing.


	65. Chapter 65

Time lost its meaning and it began to seem the whole of his life had been spent lying next to Hermione's hospital bed. Nurses and doctors and life continued to pass just beyond the door, but Knight was not interested in it so long as it did not think to come in and harm Hermione.

It became another universe, adjacent to the normal one, where only he and Hermione existed. So it was a rattling intrusion when, some time later, or maybe a lifetime and a half later, the door opened and a crowd of people poured into the small room.

Actually, it was Molly, Arthur, Ron, Fred, and George, but in a world made for two it was a stadium's worth of people.

Molly went straight to Hermione's bedside. "Oh, gracious, the poor dear! Look at her, all torn up! Those vile, disgusting, cruel, _bloody_…"

"Careful, Mum, or you'll pull something," Fred teased half-heartedly… or maybe it was George.

The Weasley clan pressed close around the bed in their collective concern, and Knight cared not for the crowding, even if they were very mindful not to tread on him. He got up and went to the far end of the room, still in a place where he could watch over Hermione but free from the gaggle of Weasleys.

"There there, Molly," Arthur said as he patted his wife's shoulder, "she has the best doctors in Saint Mungo's seeing to her. She's receiving the best care you could possibly ask for."

Molly was crying. Fred and George were surreptitiously casting endlessly fascinated glances at Knight where the jaguar sat a short distance away. They were looking and practically bursting with curiosity, but neither approached.

But Ron did. He broke from his family's vigilant post around Hermione's bed and crossed the room to join Knight. He sat down with a weary sigh beside his friend and leaned back against the wall. "Hey, mate."

Knight glanced back briefly at Ron, then returned his attention to Hermione.

"I'll never complain about exam days being the longest days in history ever again," Ron commented as he sagged against the wall. "Blimey, I feel like I could sleep for a month and still not feel rested. Who knew fighting evil could be so exhausting. Don't worry, I'm all right. Dumbledore told us about Sirius… really sorry about that. Would have been nice if it hadn't ended up that way."

Knight didn't act as though he'd heard, so single-minded was his focus on Hermione.

"Ginny would have come in for a visit, too," Ron said with a schooled expression, "but Seamus showed up. Seems he dropped everything and came looking for her the moment he heard about the attack. They're outside being all huggy and touchy. Better out there than in here where we'd have to watch it." Ron frowned and brushed at a bit of dirt on his trousers. "You know, really, I suppose Ginny could have done loads worse than Finnegan."

Finally, the twins, seeing their younger brother chummy with the jaguar, worked up their courage sufficiently to leave Hermione's bed and go over to the large cat. They both sat down in front of Knight, side by side. Knight disliked that they would presume to put themselves between him and Hermione, but he was not so far gone that he would attack a Weasley. But he still didn't like it.

"Harry… have to say, this…" the one speaking gestured at Knight's body, "_wicked_!"

Hermione was lying in bed, grievously injured, and the twins wanted to chatter about animagi. Place themselves between him and Hermione and twitter about cats and neat magical tricks. Knight laid back his ears, annoyed.

"Leave him be, you two," Ron grumbled. "It's been a pisser of a day and his girlfriend's in the hospital. He wants none of your funning. Sheesh, and people call me dense."

One identical redhead elbowed the other. "Sorry, Harry… it's a real shame about Hermione. But she'll pull through, you know? Haven't seen anything yet that could stop that bird. Real mule-headed when she wants to be."

In its own way, it was meant as a compliment, but Knight was not in the mood to be accommodating to the Weasley sense of humor.

He was spared having to tolerate any further unintended insults toward Hermione when Arthur said sternly from behind his two sons, "Don't you two have better sense than to heckle a dragon?"

"Come on, Dad, it's just _Harry_."

"Just Harry… who relieved You Know Who of his head."

Both twins looked a little ill and seemed, despite being a year older than Harry, unfathomably younger than he just then.

"Go to your mother, she could use some comforting. And for Merlin's sake, try to keep your mouths shut. She doesn't need your foolishness in the state she's in. She's still wound about Ron and Ginny being at Hogwarts during the attack, so mind yourselves."

The twins rose and obediently went over to their sobbing mother. When they were gone, Arthur sat on the floor on Knight's other side, opposite Ron.

"You probably couldn't care less about this right now, but all the same, damn good show, Harry. I'll hardly be the last to say it, but we're all indebted to you for offing that sodding bastard."

Arthur was right, Knight didn't care.

At one point in the visit, Molly left Hermione's bed to go to Knight, take his head in her hands, and pepper his brow with kisses and tears like he was a beloved pet who had dragged one of her kids to safety from a burning building. Knight suffered it with as much composure as he could, but all their ruckus made it hard to listen for Hermione's breathing.

The Weasleys stayed for a while, but when the only occupants in the room were an unconscious girl and a cat, conversation died on the vine. The silence became, to them, uncomfortable. Eventually, they decided they were doing more good outside running interference for anyone who had a notion to get an audience with the boy who killed Voldemort. With promises to Knight that they would be close at hand should he need or want anything and that he need only call on them, they packed out of the hospital room.

When they were gone, leaving the room in welcome silence, Knight returned to his previous spot lying next to Hermione's bed.

* * *

"We've tried to stem the tide as best we could, but the students who were there have told their parents, who've told others, and the Saint Mungo's staff has whispered it to their loved ones, who spread it even further… it's wildfire at this point. It's out in the _Daily Prophet_ that Harry Potter is an animagus."

"It's unimportant now if the world knows that secret, now that Voldemort is gone. Because I don't imagine the ministry would give either Harry or Miss Granger any grief for being rogues."

"They're putting them on the Animagus Registry even as we speak. No fuss."

"Good."

Knight listened to McGonagall and Dumbledore talk outside Hermione's room.

McGonagall's voice dropped so low that even Knight had to put some effort into hearing it. "Albus… those of us who saw what Mister Potter did to those Death Eaters without his wand… Ronald and Ginerva Weasley, Professor Sprout, and I… we've made a pact to never breathe a word of what really happened to another soul.

"We've agreed to tell everyone that when the Death Eaters were taken by surprise when Mister Potter and Miss Granger's animagus forms were revealed, the four of us recovered our wands and joined the fight. The official story will be that _we_ killed the Death Eaters, since the state of Mister Potter's wand would exclude him from being capable of using it to inflict the damage that was caused."

"And have each of you accepted that, in so doing, you will implicate yourselves in some very borderline use of magic? As you yourself observed, dark magic?"

"Yes. We know. We accept that responsibility. It's worth it, Albus. If people were to know the truth, what _really_ happened… Mister Potter doesn't need that. There would be many and more who would make his life unspeakably difficult for the knowledge of what he's capable of doing, regardless of the service he did us all."

"Witches and wizards are not so dissimilar from muggles in that regard… fear and misunderstanding can make them ruthless. They would undoubtedly tear down their own savior in fear."

"He doesn't deserve that."

"No… and had I been there, I would take blame for the Death Eaters' deaths so that none of you would have to bear this burden. But it is noble and admirable of you four to take this upon yourselves."

"It's a small price to pay."

"I'm certain, if Harry knew, after he protested and tried to dissuade you, he would be grateful."

The witch and wizard were quiet a moment and the sound of someone's footsteps, approaching then fading away, explained why.

"The press is getting increasingly persistent to have a word with Mister Potter, official word from the Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort as they've taken to calling him now. As though 'the Boy Who Lived' wasn't cumbersome enough."

"At least it means they're saying his name," Dumbledore observed keenly. "Would suggest that they are beginning to truly believe that the veil of terror has been lifted. As to the weighty title… it seems Harry's unenviable fate that his name will never be left at simply 'Harry'. He'll always be 'Harry Potter' something or other. At least he's a strong enough wizard to handle such a hefty title. He got used to the Boy Who Lived; he'll adjust to Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort."

"What about the reporters?"

"You could grant them a moment of time with the Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort, I suppose, but I doubt snarls and roars will make for very intriguing reading."

In any other circumstance, Knight might have found that amusing. Instead, he just listened placidly.

McGonagall was tensely quiet for a few second. "He's not changed back once since the battle. I'm concerned."

"I am as well, but we can do nothing about it. He won't change because we ask him to; he certainly won't change because the _Daily Prophet_ wants a statement."

"I'm worried about what his refusal to change might mean… what it says of his state of mind."

"If he feels better able to cope as the jaguar, Minevra, then leave him be. He's earned the right to have us respect his wishes."

"But what if… I don't truly believe for a moment it will happen, but _what if_ Miss Granger doesn't make it?" McGonagall's voice dropped, "What if she were to die? Harry would change back _eventually_… wouldn't he?"

"I honestly do not know if he would."

"But… but what… what would the wizarding world _do_ with a hero who's forever a jaguar?"

"Learn to send steaks instead of fan mail."

"Don't joke, Albus, this is serious. The public is the least of our worries if, Merlin forbid, Miss Granger passes away and this jaguar state of his becomes permanent. What about _Harry_?!"

"I assure you I am thinking of Harry. If he finds some modicum of solace in being a beast that need never answer for his actions, or speak to his heartaches, who are we to refuse him that small comfort?"

"It's just so… wrong. He won. He defeated the monster. His trials should be over now… he should have the opportunity to rest."

"I know."

McGonagall let out a long, weary sigh. "I saw you a moment ago speaking with the ministry's Head Auror. Is there any news?"

"Nothing new. Voldemort's followers are scattering like scared rabbits. Some are being caught and prosecuted, others will no doubt disappear back into the woodwork. It's a sad thing, but we'll never catch them all. At least there's no longer any chance that Voldemort with gather them to his cause again.

"Mostly, Amelia and I were putting together a clearer picture of the events that lead to that horrible confrontation at Hogwarts. Much of it is speculation on our part, of course, but it tracks so closely to the events that unfolded that I would hazard to say we're guessing right more than we are guessing wrong.

"By our proposed timeline, last summer, Voldemort stayed relatively inactive while he rebuilt his forces and his strength. The kidnap of Alastor was a search for knowledge, intelligence, but still Voldemort had matters to attend to before he struck against Harry. He had to insure that what happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the _priori incantatum_, would not run afoul his efforts again. At that point we lost Mister Ollivander. It was not until the wandsmith succeeded, a fantastic accomplishment that will garner him awe in its own way, posthumously, of course, that Voldemort was ready to strike. But by then, he had another problem. Harry wasn't where he should have been. Harry just so happened to choose this Christmas to spend away from Hogwarts.

"I imagine Voldemort hadn't foreseen that being a problem when he was making his plans; his sources within Hogwarts…" McGonagall muttered something that sounded like 'Malfoy', but Dumbledore only paused a fraction of a second before he continued speaking, "his sources in the school would have informed him that Harry always stayed the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts, and it would have been a correct observation until this year. This Christmas was the first one Harry ever chose to spend away from the school. It seems that when Harry left for Hermione's grandmother's for Christmas the Death Eaters couldn't find him. An elderly muggle woman named Roberta Richardson was not a clear connection to famous boy wizard Harry Potter. Voldemort had to draw Harry out of hiding.

"So he attacked the Dursleys and killed Harry's cousin. It was a strategic chess move, and the first moment when I played to Voldemort's hand. He knew I would get twitchy after someone so close to Harry had been murdered, he knew I would want Harry close to me… he knew I would take him back to Hogwarts.

"Young Draco Malfoy was there and waiting. His efforts to rile Harry into violence worked splendidly, better than even Mister Malfoy could have foreseen I am certain, and I have no doubt Lucius was waiting expectantly for word from his son of the attack so that he might go to the right people and demand Harry be expelled for his uncontrollable violent tendencies. Voldemort wanted to know where he could find Harry, so he forced my hand to bring him back to Hogwarts, but Voldemort did not want to face me, so once he knew where Harry was, he needed to get him away from the school and my protection. Flight from a foreknown point, providing a perfect opportunity to close in and make the kill. The expulsion tactic would have worked toward that end nicely.

"When that failed, Voldemort turned to the next logical solution. Get _me_ away from Hogwarts and leave Harry vulnerable.

"It was a masterfully crafted plan, one that will have me second-guessing myself and keep me up many nights wondering how I might have done differently, I'm sure."

"You mean the part about Sirius."

"Yes. It was always a risk having Sirius on the hunt for Voldemort, we knew that. Mister Pettigrew was working for Voldemort, and he knew of Sirius's animagus form. And Aberforth was registered with the ministry. There was no great mystery in their animagus forms, merely the advantages both forms lent the wizards using them. It was a risk, but no one could hope to seek out Voldemort and be free of risk.

"Sirius and Abeforth were captured at Dane, and Aberforth was _allowed_ to escape to bring word back to Hogwarts of Sirius's captivity… Hogwarts, where Voldemort knew for a fact Harry was.

"I am ashamed of how well Voldemort predicted what I would do in that scenario. He knew I would come myself, especially with the seat of evil sitting so close to my beloved school. He left enough Death Eaters to keep the attack force on Dane busy while he took a smaller contingent and advanced on Hogwarts.

"By the time we found Sirius, or what was left of him, slain long before we arrived, and no sign of Voldemort, we realized we'd been played, and our own safeguards protecting Hogwarts worked against us. We couldn't apparate straight to the school to join the battle here.

"We returned at once to Hogsmeade to find a fireplace so we could floo into my office, but it wouldn't connect, I know now because the floo in my office was being used to transfer students to Saint Mungo's. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at Hogwarts it was already over."

"It's a chilling sequence of events," intoned McGonagall's weary voice. "It makes me all the more relieved that we need never worry about _him_ again… one thing in all of this I still don't understand is why he destroyed the school's hospital wing."

"Because he knew my brother was there. Aberforth was grievously injured, but all the same Voldemort did not want to chance having to go up against a Dumbledore."

McGonagall sounded overwhelmed. "I think, at times, that it will never all have out. There's just so much to uncover. Moments like this, I think we'll never know the full truth of it all."

"Perhaps not. Harry and Hermione's children may never know more than the fact that there was once, long ago, an evil wizard who died and when he did everyone was free from fear."

"To think that this will ever seem as though it happened a long time ago… I don't know if I believe that."

"It probably never will be, for us. But the first children born to parents who live without fear of Voldemort… for them, it will be."

"I'll envy those children."

"So will I."


	66. Chapter 66

A/N: Just a quick comment: if you don't like the way I'm writing this, then stop reading it.

* * *

Miranda Granger never imagined that a magic hospital would be such a madhouse. Saint Mungo's was nearly as bad as King's Cross on a busy Saturday afternoon. Of course, the state of the front lobby meant little and less to Miranda. She cared only about seeing her daughter.

Jake was standing at her left side, his arm around her shoulders, while her mother was on her right. Berti was looking around a fair bit more than Jake or Miranda, but even still she was most intent upon the tall, gangly man speaking with a lobby nurse. They were staying close together, because Remus bade them too, but it was a good idea to avoid getting separated in the rabble of the witch and wizard hospital.

They'd been having a quiet evening, nothing extraordinary beyond their new normal of isolation. While they were sitting around in their hide-away home having tea Remus Lupin had come charging through the fireplace saying that it was over, Voldemort was dead.

And then they'd been told about the attack on Hogwarts, and that their daughter had been taken to Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, where she was now listed in critical condition. The entire family abandoned their tea and demanded to be taken to this Saint Mungo's at once. Remus complied without a moment's hesitation.

When they flooed into the bustling hospital (the Grangers were growing almost accustomed to traveling by fire), they were thrust into a scene of chaos. People were everywhere. It made Miranda feel the fingers of panic tighten around her heart. How horrid had the attack on the school been to cause so many to be at the hospital? How badly had her Hermione been hurt?

"Stay here. I'll go find out where your daughter is, and _don't tell anyone who you are_," Remus had said to them before hurrying off to chase down a nurse. The order not to reveal their identities had seemed peculiar, but at the same time completely unnecessary. Neither Jake, Miranda, nor Berti were in the mood to chat up strangers. They were waiting anxiously to be taken to Hermione.

Eventually, the nurse talking to Remus looked to the Grangers with a wide-eyed expression, and she gave a vigorous nod. Remus waved them over and Jake made a path with his elbows through the crowd with his wife and mother-in-law close on his heels.

Remus didn't say a word to them in the lobby, instead ushered them into the hallway. There the cacophony of sound was greatly reduced, as the crowd was mostly held at bay at the lobby doors. Miranda gripped Jake's arm.

"Your daughter's this way," Remus said as he led them down the corridor. "Sorry about the circus out there; the press is getting rabid. If they found out you were Hermione's family, I'm afraid they might have swarmed you. Might be the hospital will have to call in Aurors soon to keep them in line."

After their yuletide introduction to the darker side of the magical world, Miranda knew what Aurors were. Magic bobbies.

She also knew why their status as the immediate family members of Hermione Granger would cause an uproar. While prepping the fireplace for transport to Saint Mungo's, Remus had told them that Hermione had been instrumental in the battle that had been waged on Hogwarts school grounds… instrumental, while Harry had been the one to ultimately kill the enemy.

Miranda could scarcely believe it. Gentle, kind Harry a killer. But if he was the reason Hermione was wounded instead of dead she would rejoice in his accomplishment, even as she grieved that her dear Harry had been forced to take a life. Even one such as Voldemort's.

Remus suddenly stopped and turned to them. "Here we are, but first, before you go in there, there's something you need to know."

"We want to see our little girl," Jake said curtly. He got along well enough with Remus Lupin, but Miranda was of a mind with her husband. She just wanted to see Hermione.

"I know… I won't keep you long. One question… do you know what an animagus is?"

Miranda had never heard the word before, and quite honestly didn't give a bloody damn about 'animaguses'. Jake shook his head with dangerously thinning tolerance. Berti didn't feel it necessary that she even comment, as she had only discovered a matter of days ago that such a thing as magic existed.

"Well," Remus went on hurriedly, "an animagus is a witch or wizard who has the ability to turn into an animal."

"Fascinating, but what's that have to do with us going in to be with our daughter?" Jake asked impatiently.

"Hermione and Harry are both animagi," Remus answered bluntly, realizing the Grangers were in no mood to mince words.

Miranda gaped. "You… you mean our Hermione's… she's an animal?"

"Not now, they turned her back to treat her, but I want to warn you because Harry _is_ still in his animal form. He has been ever since the attack. He won't change back, we're not sure why, but I didn't want you to be alarmed when you went in there and found a panther at your daughter's bedside. It's just Harry, so there's no reason to be afraid."

Miranda looked up in astonishment at Jake. Jake was stony-faced as he took in the information. "Duly noted… now please, sir, stand aside."

Remus did so without another moment's hesitation and Jake opened the door.

When Miranda came in after her husband she privately had to thank Remus Lupin for his forewarning. For there was, just as he said, a large black panther lying on the floor in front of the hospital bed. Had she not been told to expect it, she may have panicked to see a seeming wild animal alone with her injured daughter.

The panther brought up his head at once when they entered, and for a second Miranda stared into its blue eyes. They were Harry's, she saw that in a moment. She didn't even need the white lightning-bolt shaped scar over his right eye for her to identify him as her daughter's boyfriend. The eyes were Harry's as they met hers across the room. When she understood that, she was incapable of being afraid of the animal.

Miranda looked up at the bed, took in the sight of her daughter, and her heart burned and made her entire body ache. She felt pain as she never had before in her life. Hermione was lying motionless on her stomach, her back an enormous bandage.

She rushed to her daughter's bedside, so consumed with reaching her girl that she didn't even notice the panther get up and quickly move out of the way.

Miranda touched Hermione's hair. "Sweetie… can you hear me? It's Mum. We're here. Dad and Gram are here with you, honey."

Jake came up alongside Miranda and squeezed her shoulder.

"Oh, Jake… she's so pale."

Jake covered his mouth with his free hand, as though to hold back a sob. He obviously didn't trust himself to speak to his wife's observations.

Berti rounded the bed to stand at Hermione's other side. She eyed the monitoring charms over the head of the bed and grunted.

"Hermione…" Miranda whispered and took her daughter's limp hand.

Berti had tears brimming in her eyes, but she ignored them as she leaned closer to Hermione and said, "Now you listen to your grandmother, young lady. You're to get well, understand? I won't take any lip, you just do as I say… all right?"

"Mister and Missus Granger?" a male voice called from the door.

Everyone turned to see a fat wizard with frizzy white hair enter the room. "I'm Doctor Manmalis, I've been overseeing your daughter's treatment."

"How is she?" Jake asked.

Manmalis looked once to the panther in the room, then came in farther. "It's still too early to say. She was brought in with very extensive curse injuries. I understand you're both muggles?"

Jake and Miranda nodded, Miranda never once letting go of Hermione's hand.

"Well, it's a little difficult to explain if you aren't imbued with magic, but, in essence, the curse that was used against your daughter attacked her body and her magic. In a witch or wizard, the two are intricately interconnected. An affliction that affects only a witch or wizard's magic but leaves their body untouched can be just as crippling to them as a muggle disease like cancer is to nonmagical folk. Magic is an essential part of your daughter's natural defense mechanisms, and when she was wounded by the particular curse that she was struck with, her ability to protect herself was dealt a massive blow.

"Hermione was hit with what we in the healing profession term a two-tiered necrotizing curse. Well, I'll spare you the technical details; I don't want to overly alarm you…"

"Please, uh, we're doctors," Jake said in a carefully controlled voice, "just… tell us what you know about what's happened to our daughter."

"Very well… these two-tiered necrotizing curses are so named for they are two-fold in that they eat away at the body, but they also consume the magical core of a witch or wizard. Either one alone can be fatal."

"Is she going to die?" Miranda asked thinly.

Manmalis pursed his lips. "I can't make any promises, but there are several factors working in her favor. First, she was brought in soon after she was cursed, so we were able to halt the toxic effects of the curse. Second, she's made it through the first twenty-four hours, which is often seen as a hurdle in recoveries such as these. We would hope to see some more improvement, but neither has her condition worsened.

"In my professional opinion, the greatest reason to hope for a full recovery is that these curses find damage to the body easier to inflict than damage to the magic. Magic is a burly thing, doesn't like to be attacked, and it fights like the devil. Considering how quickly Hermione was brought in, the most damage she suffered was physical. That we can heal, with time, but if her magic had been irrevocably damaged her chances of survival would have been low, and even then it would be only to live the rest of her life as a squib."

To Miranda's puzzled look, the doctor clarified, "Unable to perform magic."

Miranda fought to keep her breathing even. Of course she would trade Hermione's magic for her life any day, but she also knew she couldn't properly understand what losing magic would be like. Miranda lived her entire life without doing a single bit of magic; it was impossible for her to fully comprehend how that might be an unfulfilling way to live. But she knew Hermione loved the world of magic, defined herself as a witch before all else. She could understand that Hermione would be devastated to lose the ability to do magic.

Even still, Miranda would think it a fair trade to have her girl live.

"Will Hermione be a squid?" Jake asked, knowing the same things that Miranda did about the importance of magic to their daughter.

"Squib. And no. On that, I can offer you complete reassurance. We've been watching her magical signature closely, and I have to say that your daughter is one of the most powerful muggle-borns we've ever encountered here at Saint Mungo's. Magic is not entirely hereditary, but there is a genetic component, such that muggle-born witches and wizards are often not as powerful as their pureblood or half-blood counterparts. I won't go into the magic eugenics hogwash the likes of Voldemort and his followers preach, because there are many pureblood witches who couldn't stand a chance against your daughter, but medically speaking there _is_ an inherited component.

"But in Hermione's case, her strong magical core made it more resilient to the curse's attack." Manmalis smirked. "In a way, I suppose you could very accurately liken it to the literal events that unfolded… a human going toe to toe with a lioness."

"Lioness… that's the animal our daughter can turn into?" Miranda asked, still grappling with that new discovery about Hermione.

Manmalis nodded. "She was wounded when she was in her lioness form.

"But as I said, the bulk of the damage done to your daughter was physical. If we can heal her body, her magic should do the rest and there's no reason to think she won't make a full recovery."

Miranda tucked a strand of Hermione's hair back behind her ear and gazed down painfully and lovingly at her daughter's face, in profile as her head was turned to the side on the pillow.

"Allow me to make you all more comfortable," Manmalis said, and he produced his wand with practiced ease. He withdrew from his inside robe pockets some squares of taffy that he dropped on the floor. With a wave of his wand, they were transfigured into chairs.

"If you should need anything, just pop out into the hall and flag down a nurse," the healer said kindly then he turned to leave.

"Thank you," Jake said, then left Miranda's side to bring his wife one of the chairs. Miranda scooted it over next to the head of Hermione's bed and she sat down, her hand never letting go of Hermione's the entire time.

Jake took a chair to Berti on the other side of the bed, then he claimed the last one for himself near the foot of Hermione's bed. He brought a hand to rest on Hermione's sheet-covered legs for the sake of contact. Then the vigil began.

Miranda stared intently at Hermione's face. She looked so still, so unhealthily and painfully ashen. There was a bruise on her cheek, so where her skin wasn't chalky it was purple. She smelled unwell and coppery, like blood. Miranda couldn't bear to think why. Her hair was a fright… it needed a good brushing. Miranda reached forward with her hand that wasn't holding Hermione's and began to brush at Hermione's hair with her fingers. It became a hypnotic action. She fell into a rhythm, and it was a task where she had some effect. She couldn't make Hermione better, though she so desperately wanted to. She wanted to have some maternal, magical ability to heal Hermione, take her pain for herself, but she didn't have that power. She could do nothing to heal her child, but her daughter's hair she could fix.

When Miranda was finished, Hermione's hair at least was in some semblance of order. It could do with a wash, and still a brush would be beneficial, but Hermione looked a bit more like herself with the tangles and knots picked apart. Miranda only wished she could do something about her daughter's back and face.

Miranda sat back and started when she saw the panther sitting right next to her chair. She had not even heard him approach her. Miranda blinked down at the panther with Harry's eyes. She met them steadily, saw beyond the cat façade to the anguished, aching young man he was inside. She looked through Knight and saw Harry.

Knight seemed to know it, or maybe Miranda only believed that he did. Either way, the panther broke eye contact with her and laid his head on Miranda's lap.

Miranda let her hand come to rest on Knight's head. Jake glanced over at them then back at Hermione's still form. Berti worried the edge of Hermione's bed sheet absently.

Hermione had so many people who needed her to live, if only she could know it and let it fortify her to fight for her life.


	67. Chapter 67

A day and night passed with no one in the hospital room leaving Hermione's side. They were undisturbed. The brigade of comrades, classmates, teachers, and friends holding back the sea of reporters and curious was a fierce force, a wall of loyalty to Harry and Hermione that gave those attending Hermione peace. The Weasleys made a few visitors patients, but Saint Mungo's did not ask the rowdy redheads to leave. There were still beds enough to accommodate the overzealous.

It was late, or early… or maybe neither. Time became meaningless at Hermione's silent bedside, but in any case, when Miranda left her daughter's room for the first time Jake and Berti were asleep in their chairs. Knight wasn't asleep, Miranda wasn't sure that he did sleep for she had never seen him, but she couldn't find sleep herself and decided to track down Remus Lupin and tell him the safe house was not needed anymore. If the threat of Voldemort was gone, she wanted to go home. When Hermione was better.

She found the wizard who had been their watch-protector in the lobby speaking to a reporter… while a dozen pressed around them to shamelessly listen in. They looked to be a disgruntled lot, and understandably so when Miranda overheard Remus saying that there was nothing new to report on either the conditions of Hermione Granger or Harry Potter and that they would be informed as soon as there was good cause for them to know. The press bristled at the brush-off, but the Aurors that Remus had warned might be called in for crowd control apparently had been, because when the robed men and women standing around the lobby stepped toward the crowd everyone with a quill and camera backed away.

When Miranda got to speak with Remus, it was to discover he had already anticipated their desire to return home and was presently having some friends of his take all the personal effects in the safe house back to the Granger residence. Miranda thanked him for all he'd done and excused herself to return to her daughter's room.

On her way, she was stopped by a nurse. "Missus Granger!"

Miranda turned. "Yes?"

"You probably don't remember me; I've been in to your daughter's room a few times to check on her and see to the nourishment spells."

"Yes, of course."

"I don't mean to bother you, but while I was looking in on your daughter I couldn't help but notice the way Harry Potter lets you comfort him."

Miranda was still getting used to the way others felt the inexplicable need to call Harry by his full name, and half the time with the inclusion of some long-winded title. At the moment, however, the observation was her tertiary concern (Hermione, naturally, being the first and the nurse's business being the second for the immediate time being). "Yes?" Miranda asked, a bit more icily. She was getting paranoid with all the reporters clamoring to get in to see Hermione and Harry. She wanted her children left alone and would be mightily indignant if this 'nurse' turned out not to be one at all but some newspaper mole in a costume.

"I wondered if you might be able to do something… it's for Harry Potter," the nurse quickly added, perhaps seeing Miranda's mounting suspicion and hostility.

Miranda was paused by the proposed benefactor of the request. "What sort of 'something' did you have in mind?"

The nurse looked hopeful at Miranda's change in attitude. "You see, Harry Potter hasn't eaten since he got here."

"That's been days ago," Miranda remarked in mild surprise.

The nurse nodded. "Three. We'll bring him food, but he won't touch it. We've managed to get him to drink, but not eat. I thought, maybe, if you tried to cajole him… if he's close to you and trusts you maybe he'll eat for you."

He might, he might not, but at least it would be doing something when Miranda was feeling so completely helpless. She couldn't do anything for Hermione, but maybe she could for Harry.

"Yes… well, I'd certainly be willing to try."

The nurse smiled. "Wonderful! I'll go fetch a tray from the cafeteria. I'll be just a moment." The nurse turned and hurried away. Miranda stood in the corridor waiting, fretting about Hermione but worrying a fair bit about Harry, too. She wanted so desperately for this ordeal to be over and both her kids well again. She wanted things back to the way they were before Christmas Day.

Shortly, the nurse returned with a tray loaded with cuts of cooked meat. Miranda looked at it dubiously. She had been expecting soup or perhaps a sandwich, and the mother in her would have liked to see a few vegetables to balance out the overload of protein. The nurse explained to Miranda's visible concern, "Since Harry Potter's in his animagus form, this might be more tempting to him. Though…" the nurse hesitated, "if you could talk him into changing…" the nurse's face turned harried and drawn with professional (and maybe a bit more than professional) worry again, "it's just had a lot of us very worried about him."

Miranda actually believed that it did bother this nurse, at least.

"I'll see what I can do," Miranda said as she accepted the tray, "but don't expect any miracles." Then she wanted to snort at her own words. Don't expect miracles in a magical hospital for witches and wizards named after a saint of some sort.

She needed a vacation.

Mindful of her mother and husband who were still sleeping when she returned, Miranda slipped back into Hermione's room with care, making as little sound as humanly possible. Knight was sitting at Hermione's side, between Miranda's chair and Jake's. His black tail was curled on the tile floor beside him, his ears locked on Hermione's form. He was watching Hermione steadily with the level of focus a housecat might give a wounded bird floundering in the grass. But Hermione did nothing more overt than breathing; Miranda knew because she'd been just as intent on the young woman on the bed. But to that small sign of life, she'd been just as focused as the panther was now. Miranda ached for Knight in his vigilant watch; she knew how hard it was to see Hermione like she was.

"Harry?" Miranda whispered.

Knight turned first an ear back in Miranda's direction where she stood near the door of the room, then he turned his head to look toward Miranda. Miranda smiled as best she could and crossed the room to reclaim her seat. She set the tray of food in her lap and regarded Knight carefully. Knight looked at the food heaped on the tray, uninterested, and looked up at Miranda with painfully dull eyes.

"Harry, honey… I'd like you to eat something."

Knight just sat, unflinching, as though he had not understood a word she said. He made no move to take anything from the tray.

Miranda saw for herself the kind of dispassionate apathy Knight showed toward food, the disregard for his own well-being that had set the nursing staff to fretting, and she had to worry, too. "Please… a nurse told me that you haven't eaten anything in days. Could you just try to eat something? I'm worried about you."

Knight's facial muscles tightened and his ears went back. A look of clear distress. He didn't like that he made Miranda worry.

Miranda picked up a piece of chicken and offered it to him. Knight sniffed the proffered poultry, glanced up at Miranda, then opened his mouth and took the food in his teeth. With a few powerful chews of his great jaws, he swallowed the chicken and licked his lips.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Miranda asked, and scratched Knight behind the ear. He closed his eyes partially. Miranda had been uncertain at first about how to treat Knight when he was not truly an animal, but inside actually the boy Harry she'd come to love in a very real sense. She was in a quandary over the question of how much like an animal to treat an animagus? But she discovered, through the long hours, that he didn't object to any form of touch. From the plaintive, seeking look in his eyes, he may have even needed it.

Miranda fed Knight a few more small parcels of food, cuts of pork and chicken, until he began to look fatigued at the thought of being forced to take anymore. Miranda smiled warmly. "That's plenty, I think… thank you, Harry." Miranda set the tray on the floor beside her chair then took Knight's head in her hands and kissed his brow tenderly. Knight rubbed his cheek against her hand.

Miranda studied the feline features cupped between her palms. She looked closely at him and the inevitable question came upon her. "Harry… how far down in there are you?" Miranda asked as she gazed into his eyes. He stared back at her, his eyes unblinking and penetrating. When she looked into his eyes, she believed she could see Harry there, but it was behind a wall of panther. She thought perhaps it was his place to hide without leaving Hermione's side. The hospital staff would love to have the real Harry Potter, boy wonder or whatever they were calling him now, to fawn over and cater to. Truth be told, Miranda would very much like to take the young man up in a proper hug, but as she looked deeply into his face she decided against trying to coax him into changing back to a regular wizard. And she almost believed that he would, if she implored him.

She would love to see Harry's face, the face she knew, but she wouldn't try to make him change. She knew, and intellectually admitted it was probably only a fraction of the full story, of what had happened at Hogwarts during the attack. She knew some of what Harry had seen and what he'd done. She couldn't begrudge Harry not wanting to own up to it, to face it in human terms, even if Miranda would never think to condemn him for his actions. Not in a hundred lifetimes. Hermione was still alive because of what he'd done, and Miranda loved him, man or panther, for it.

Mother and panther were locked together in a powerful bind of unwavering eye contact, understanding transcending species as they stared into one another's eyes. Not unsurprisingly, considering his heightened sense of hearing, when there was a tiny sound from within the room Knight heard it first. Miranda was watching him, marveling at this boy, when Knight's right ear, the ear on the side of Hermione's bed, turned away from Miranda and toward the bed. A light of urgency ignited in Knight's blue eyes and he pulled sharply away from Miranda's hold. Knight stood at once and turned to face the bed.

Miranda, startled, turned her head to follow Knight's gaze… and saw Hermione move.

She gasped and jumped to her feet. "Jake! Jake, Mum! Wake up! She's coming around!"

In a matter of seconds, everyone was crowding tightly around the bed and watching Hermione with bated breath.

Hermione's face moved in a scowl, her brow knit, and her lips parted. Everyone in the room watched tensely.

Miranda gripped Hermione's hand and bent close. "Hermione?"

"Mmm… Mum?" she croaked.

Miranda laughed through a torrent of happy tears. "Yes. Yes, honey, it's Mum."

"Uhhh… wh… where'm I?"

"Saint Mungo's Hospital," Jake said as he shuffled in closer to his daughter, beaming. "Hi, sweetheart."

Hermione didn't have the strength yet to open her eyes, but she gave a very faint smile. "Hhh, Dad…"

"Don't go forgetting your old gram now," Berti said with a delighted chuckle.

Hermione's eyelids fluttered but stayed closed. "Mmmmm."

"How do you feel?" Miranda asked as she smoothed her free hand over Hermione's hair.

Hermione's tongue barely ventured out to touch the tip to her dry, chapped lips. "Thirsty… m' back hurts…"

"I know, sweetie, you were hurt, but you're going to be all right," Miranda said and gave Hermione's hand a tight squeeze. She could have done a back flip for joy when she felt Hermione's fingers squeeze back, for the first time in all the hours that Miranda had cradled a limp hand.

Then, suddenly, a panic-stricken worry etched into the lines of Hermione's face. She forced open her eyes, peeks of chocolate brown as Hermione willed them to see, and she whispered hoarsely, "Harry?"

"I'm here."

Miranda looked to her side and saw Harry standing next to her, just a few paces back and between Miranda and Jake. And it _was_ Harry, the young man and not the panther. He looked just as battered and bruised and tousled as Hermione, but he was just as wonderfully alive. Miranda's cheeks hurt from the width of her grin. Her face was wet but she didn't care.

Harry stood back among the family that was gathered around Hermione's bed, in a perfect position to take in everything, but he had eyes only for Hermione.

With as much grace as she could muster, Miranda let go of Hermione's hand and stepped back.

Harry stepped forward and took Hermione's hand in his own. Hermione squeezed his fingers even tighter than she had squeezed Miranda's. Hermione watched Harry's every move as the young man went to his knees beside her bed.

Harry opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a few times, lost in the sight of her looking at him, then he pulled their joined hands up to his chest. "I… I thought you left me," Harry whispered brokenly.

Hermione managed a half-smile. "Told you… never happen."

Harry visibly shook as he closed his eyes, turned his head to the side, and laid it on the bed next to her shoulder. Hermione's nose was practically buried in Harry's black hair. She let her eyes fall shut, but it was not to fade back into oblivion. Instead, she looked peaceful. She looked heavenly blessed, bruised and torn and weary but unspeakably lovely for just being alive. Hermione gently freed her hand from Harry's and slowly slid her fingers up into his hair. The way she cupped his head with her hand, she looked as though she were holding him to her.

Harry choked on a sob and curled his fingers, desperately but tenderly, around her forearm.

Hermione barely pressed her lips into Harry's tangled hair, still weak but at least finally awake. "M'a'right, Harry," she said in a cracked, dry voice. It was the most beautiful sound Miranda had ever heard, second only perhaps to Hermione's first cry when she was born.

"M'fine, Harry," Hermione consoled while the young man's face twisted as he fought against crying. "M'okay… I love you," Hermione whispered.

A tear fell and Harry pulled Hermione's hand out of his hair and turned his head enough to place a kiss on her palm. He moved his hand from her arm, tracked it up to her hand, and let their fingers twine so naturally together. "I love you, too," he breathed haggardly.

Miranda found herself in Jake's arms, being hugged fiercely and kissed on the temple while she cried happily and watched her daughter and the young man who would one day be her husband return together from the brink of darkness.

And for them all, ensconced in the windowless hospital room, the sun shined brightly.


	68. Chapter 68: Epilogue

A/N: This is it, the end of the journey. This story's been an incredible bit of fun for me, and I hope for many of you as well. It's probably safe to say I'm just as sad to see it end as some of the more devoted readers are. Before the last curtain drops on this story, I have to give special thanks to my techno-lohtar Sierra Phoenix, who made posting possible, my wonderful beta Sil, who sanded off the rough edges, and last but not least, the readers. Thank you so much for all your wonderful support on this epic story. I won't forget how great all the people leaving comments about this fic have been during my dabble in the Harry Potter fandom.

* * *

EPILOGUE

* * *

Harry Potter apparated to the end of his driveway in the slowly falling snow the day before Christmas Eve. The path to the house was a swath cleared through the ivory drifts where Hermione had cast a heating charm to melt the snow clear through to the winter-brittle grass below. In the fenced pasture to Harry's right, Antigone gave a startle when he suddenly appeared, without warning, with a loud pop. To the mare's credit, she quickly realized it was the master of the house come home and went from the brink of bolting to nickering hopefully for a carrot in a matter of seconds.

Harry stepped over to the fence as the mare stuck her head over the top rail and nosed at his jacket. Harry chuckled. "You're lucky the feast at Hogwarts has something for everyone," he said gently and dug into his pocket for the carrot he had grabbed on his way out of the Great Hall. He broke it in half and gave both pieces to the horse, who crunched them loudly then snorted, her breath rushing from her nostrils in a white mist in the chilly air.

Twenty-year-old Harry gave the mare a final pat on the neck and turned his eyes to the house. He could see, in the front window, the Christmas tree twinkling with exactly-placed racing circuits of lights strung around the girth of the tree. Warm, inviting yellow light poured through the windows to stain the snow in the yard in cream hues. Icicles hung from the eaves and overhangs, catching the sun just enough to sparkle like lights that nature chose to string. From the driveway's end, it was the most comforting sight Harry could imagine seeing, be it on a good day or the most rotten day.

Their house was not large by any definition, they could have afforded a house five times the size, but they saw no need. It had all they required; a cozy house to live in, a place for Tiggy, and their property included a portion of a small woodland, which Professor Sprout had generously helped them to improve, where they could let loose and play as Knight and Sagehunter. The house itself was only a part of the package, and by anyone's accounts not the biggest part.

Their Camelot was as big as they saw need for it to be. Perhaps modest, but enough. Their home suited their needs for now. Any larger and they might waste unnecessary time looking for each other in it, Hermione liked to joke.

Harry, at the thought of his wife, smiled to himself and started toward the house. He thrust his hands in his pockets and Tiggy, seeing her source of treats had been exhausted, turned back to the task from which Harry had interrupted her when he apparated home, pawing at the snow to try and uncover bits of grass.

When Harry pushed open the front door the warmth inside the house suffused him in a great engulfing wave of comfort and content, as did that unique smell of Christmas that Harry was finally growing to love like most other people always had. The door jingled merrily, thanks to the jingle bells Hermione had affixed to the inside door handle. It was a cheery welcome for those returning home, but it served as a handy announcement of arrivals, too.

"That you, Harry?" Hermione called from the living room.

Harry closed the door behind him and shucked his jacket. "Yeah," he called back. He hung up his jacket, stomped off the snow on his shoes on the front rug, then moved beyond the foyer. When he came around to where he could see the living room he had to smile.

The fire burning warm and cozy from the stone fireplace was painting flickering orange light over the hearthrug where Crookshanks was curled in a ginger ball, dozing and purring with every other breath. On a perch set up in an unused corner of the living room, so she could think of it as her own, Hedwig was roosting. When Harry came into the room she gave a hoot of greeting.

At the well-known sound of salutation from her husband's familiar, and knowing to whom it would be sounded, Hermione looked up. Hermione was on the couch dressed in sweat pants and Harry's old, worn Quidditch T-shirt. It was practically thread-bare, the maroon was more a sickly purple, the gold a dingy yellow, and the letters spelling out 'POTTER' on the back were almost unreadable. But it was Hermione's favorite and she intended to wear the shirt until it literally fell off of her. She'd said as much. Harry hoped he was there when it happened. She had her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and her feet were tucked underneath her on the couch cushion. And everywhere, all around her, were notebooks and sheets of paper. She had a quill poised over a sheaf of parchment in her lap when she stopped to look at him.

"Hey," Hermione said with a bright smile, "how was the feast?"

Harry shrugged. "I can't believe how _small_ first years are, every year it's like they get smaller… surely we were never that little. And have I mentioned how much I detest all this Liberation Day stuff?"

Hermione's smile became gentle and understanding. "I know, but it really _is_ an important day."

"Yeah, I know, and I might not mind putting up with it if it was just the one day out of the year, but making a drawn-out production of it… Merlin, _Christmas_ gets lost in the shuffle with Liberation Day falling only a few days after Christmas day."

"Well, think how I feel," Hermione said with sudden sincerity and a dissatisfied frown.

"Huh?"

"I mean… it's every day of the year for us, but come this time of year I have to share you with the wizarding world." Hermione began to smile slyly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Ha ha… funny."

"And you oughtn't complain about Liberation Day… considering how close it came to being called Harry Potter Day."

"Don't remind me," Harry groaned and shook droplets of melted snow from his hair. "Besides, you know I wouldn't have stood for that; wouldn't be a Liberation Day _or_ Harry Potter Day or whatever the bloody hell you want to call it if it hadn't been for you. Who was it who convinced me to become an animagus? And who was it who kept on me to work at learning wandless magic? I would have been done for without both of those abilities, and _you_ made me apply myself to learning them. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be standing here bemoaning Liberation Day."

Hermione gave him a lop-sided, tender smile for his words, then her face paled slightly and she gave a faint grimace.

"Queasy?" Harry asked sympathetically.

Hermione nodded. "A bit."

"Would you like me to make you some tea?"

"That'd be great. Thanks."

"No problem." Harry went to the kitchen and put on a kettle, taking from the cupboard Hermione's favorite herbal blend. While waiting for the water to boil, he perused the odd assortment of Christmas cards pinned on the refrigerator. The Potters got an obscene amount of Christmas cards from people they'd never met or heard of, but cards from friends and family got pinned on the refrigerator. The newest, one that Harry had not seen yet, had an animated front sporting swooping dragons, belching red and green fire. He hardly needed to look inside to know it was from Ginny in Romania, where she was studying to be a dragon-keeper.

When the tea finished he filled a mug and carried it into the living room. When she saw him rejoin her in the living room, Hermione cleared off a spot on the couch beside her and put down her work on the coffee table to accept the steaming mug. "Thanks so much," she said with an appreciative sip.

Harry sat down close beside her and Hermione snuggled into his side in a well-rehearsed movement. Reflexively, Harry put his arm around her shoulders.

"I still wish you had come with me to the feast," Harry said wistfully. Harry and Hermione got an unending parade of offers to appear at public events around Liberation Day, and most of those they declined because all they wanted was to live their lives in peace, but every year they agreed to go to Hogwarts's celebration when Headmaster Dumbledore asked them to attend a feast in their honor. By unofficial tradition, after the spirited rejoicing and celebrating with the children and professors in the Great Hall, Harry and Hermione would retire with Dumbledore to the headmaster's office for a drink where they would pay respects to the memory of those who were lost to Voldemort's campaign. James and Lily Potter, Aberforth Dumbledore, Kimmy, Sirius Black, Hagrid, Alastor Moody, and so many others… it was always a long, sobering list, but they made it a point never to forget a single one who'd been close to them.

This was the first year of the last three that both of them had not gone (the first two Liberation Days after the fateful battle, Harry and Hermione were still students at Hogwarts, so naturally they were in attendance so it could hardly be viewed as a choice to appear on their part).

Hermione put her head on Harry's shoulder. "It's only the fifth anniversary; there'll be more. I wanted to make some headway on this," she gestured at the stacks of papers on the coffee table.

"How's it coming?"

Hermione was quiet a moment, then she sighed. "Are you _sure_ you want _me_ to do this?"

Harry smirked, rubbed Hermione's arm with his hand, and gave her a brief hug. "As certain as I was the other thousand times you asked me."

Hermione took another drink of her tea and seemed roll it around over her tongue before swallowing and speaking again. "There are countless people who write professionally who would jump at the chance to write the official Harry Potter biography, complete with interviews straight from the horse's mouth as they say."

"All strangers who don't know the Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort from any bloke on the street beyond my stupid scar," Harry said. "You know you're the only person I trust to do it right. Who knows me better? You were the one who told me that this book, my story, would be written by someone regardless of whether I wanted it to be or not, so make it on my terms, right? But if you don't want to do it—"

"No, I _want_ to, I don't trust anyone else to do you justice either, I just… I'm not a writer. I've read more books than I can count, but that's not the same as _writing_ a book. I may be absolute rubbish at it."

"I don't believe for a second you could be horrible at something if you tried," Harry countered, then he smiled. "Well, except for flying on a broom, maybe. Besides, we will have it proofed before it's published."

She mulled that over quietly, half of her attention elsewhere. Where, Harry didn't know, but he knew it wasn't on the book. "You still want Mum and Dad to read it before anyone else does?"

Harry nodded; on that he was certain of his decision. "Yes."

Hermione shifted against him as though to pull away and look at him, but at the last minute she chose to stay put, snuggled up comfortably against him. She said from her position tucked against his side, "You're rather adamant about that."

He was and he knew it. "Mione… there are so many things Jake and Miranda don't know about me, well," he waved at the papers, "you know how much there is, and I don't want total strangers to know the real me before they do. I care about them too much to do that.

"And I want Ron to read it before it sees an editor, too."

"Ron? Why? He's not exactly a bibliophile, after all. It was the most I could do in school to get him to do his required reading. Why would he want to read this?"

Harry smirked. "Because he and I will have to make sure you give _yourself_ proper dues."

Hermione chuckled shyly into his shoulder, embarrassed and touched at once. "Harry…"

"And don't think we won't be right sticklers about it. We plan to be regular McGonagalls when she's grading term papers. If, by the end of reading that book, people aren't as enchanted with you as I am, then it's not been done right."

Hermione swatted him on the stomach with one hand. "Oh, Harry, stop it."

"Just giving you fair warning. You might end up the heroine of this book when it's all said and done."

She gave a theatrical groan at the very thought. "Merlin, no one would want to read it. They want to know about _you_."

"I'm all about you, Hermione." Harry placed a kiss on top of her head. "Another thing the public doesn't know about their ruddy hero."

Hermione snorted lightly, took another sip of her tea, and snuggled down tighter against Harry as though settling in for a nap. He wouldn't mind if she did; certainly wouldn't be the first time she'd fallen asleep on him.

Harry loved that they could play with one another the way they did. With every additional year free of Voldemort's rein of terror that they could put behind them, it seemed the laughs and jokes came more easily. Five years ago, he never would have thought himself anything near to a happy-go-lucky person by nature, but he was discovering that life with Voldemort dead was vastly different from life with the dark lord's fate unknown. Life with Hermione was better than anything Harry had ever known before. Not that it had always been laughter and hugs. There had been some bad times right after the final battle, for Harry and Hermione both. There were gloomy days when Hermione's recovery took a turn for the worse, days when Harry had to face the fact he had inside him the capability for performing horrifically dark magic. But even those unsavory moments and unpleasant reminders were becoming ghostly remnants of the past. They were finally getting on with life, forging ahead with one another, and actually having the chance to be happy in the process.

"I'm only on third year," Hermione murmured absently as she surveyed the seemingly unending sea of papers and notes. Her voice shook Harry from his thoughts and he just barely craned his neck to look down at Hermione's head pillowed on his shoulder. "This thing may take years to finish."

"Then it takes years… not as though we're hurting for money. And once this thing hits the stores… I'm glad you handle the finances and not me."

"I've thought of that, too," Hermione said pensively. "_If_ I don't turn this into a travesty of literature… Harry, your story will probably be in every wizard home in the world. Magical children will grow up reading your adventures before bed and playing Harry Potter against the Dementors in the yard with sticks. You're our modern Merlin."

"Ugh…"

"Not my words, I heard it on the wizard radio," Hermione said with a smile in the sound of her voice, then her tone turned softer and more serious as she said, "but it's true."

Harry sighed, less than thrilled to say the least. But he too had heard that latest ostentatious nickname for him. As if Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort and the Boy Who Lived hadn't been enough monikers to have thrust upon him before he was twenty-one. "I try not to think about I," Harry grumbled. "So your book outsells Gilderoy Lockhart's best-seller. We'll just get another vault at Gringotts for all the money you make from this book and put it out of our minds completely."

Hermione made a thoughtful, ironic noise. "I've never heard of a celebrity with such a rotten opinion of money as you have." There was no recrimination in her voice, merely faintly amused observation.

Harry shrugged with the shoulder that was not serving as Hermione's headrest. "It's not what's important, but most people don't see it, and I guess that just… feels wrong to me."

"I know," Hermione said softly and laid her hand on his thigh. And she did know, he knew. She understood how he felt because he'd been given money in place of parents and had hated the trade every single second of his life.

But it wasn't appreciation for her depth of understanding of his quirky mind that was stirring Harry right then… it was the hand she'd so casually placed on his thigh. He'd been enjoying the calm, comfortable quiet of their evening, but shifting to a little less quiet and calm was definitely promising.

"I called Mum while you were out," Hermione said conversationally, her hand still on his leg. "I told her we'd be at Gram's at ten tomorrow morning."

"Uh huh," Harry returned as he brought up his free hand to trace Hermione's forearm affectionately… and in doing so just happening to nudge her hand a bit higher up his leg.

"Gram's really thrilled that you footed the bill to have Uncle Ben and his family flown over for the holidays; Mum said she's been going on and on about how wonderful it will be to have the whole family together for Christmas. If you ever had any lingering question as to whether or not Gram liked you before, you'll never have to worry again after this Christmas."

"Oh, good," Harry said, rather distracted in truth, as he shifted slightly forward on the couch cushion, wiggling his hips very discreetly closer to her perfect hand lying wonderfully, elegantly, enticingly high on his thigh.

"I've informed the owl post that we'd rather have our mail held than forwarded to Gram's house, so we won't be bothered during Christmas. Though we should still take along Hedwig. No reason not to now that Gram knows all about the world of magic."

"Sure," Harry responded while subtly managing to get Hermione's hand an inch higher… and winding him sweetly tighter. The heat from the fire was noticeably oppressive just then, and strangely concentrated on his face. His pulse was quickening and his stomach tying itself in exquisite knots.

Hedwig hooted haughtily and turned on the perch to present her back to the couple. Crookshooks looked over at them, gave a sniff, and stood to primly pad out of the room.

"Oh, and Harry?"

"Hmmm?"

Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder to look him in the eye… and how well he knew that devilish glint in her gaze. It shot a bolt of desire through him, head to toe, and made his jeans uncomfortably tight. "You're so transparent," said with a saucy voice and a wicked smirk.

Harry was breathless.

Hermione put down her mug, turned back to him on the couch, and promptly straddled him. Harry's hands immediately went to her hips, those hips his hands knew so well, and he buried his face in her stomach, nibbling lovingly at her belly through the thin material of the shirt. Hermione's fingers raked through his hair and she tugged at the back of his neck until Harry complied, drew back, and looked up at her.

Hermione spread her legs farther apart as she sat down on his lap, bent down, and captured his mouth with hers. Harry slipped his arms around her bum and hungrily tugged her closer to him. Their bodies touched and moved away, an exquisite dance of flesh and body heat. Harry deepened their kiss. Hermione trembled and hummed throatily into his mouth as their tongues dueled like fighting serpents. She splayed her fingers over his chest as Harry slipped his hands underneath her shirt and touched her back, lightly tracing the line of her scar with his fingertips.

Hermione tracked her hands purposefully over his torso, down his stomach, and at last she found the fly of his pants by touch alone. Harry broke from lavishing attention on her lips to bury his face in the crook of her neck. Hermione freed the button of his jeans with practiced ease. He growled against her skin. Hermione gave a breathy laugh and blindly began to pull down his zipper.

The fireplace flared and changed from yellow to green. Hermione leapt off Harry's lap and whirled to face the fireplace. Harry jumped to his feet and turned to face the kitchen as he hastily tugged back up his zipper just as Arthur Weasley strode through the floo into their living room.

"Happy Christmas, Potters!" he called cheerfully, arms laden with gifts like a red-haired Saint Nick.

"Oh, um… happy Christmas, Mister Weasley," Hermione said in a high-pitched voice. She noticed and cleared her throat a couple of times.

Harry turned to face their guest… but made it a point to stand behind Hermione. "Hi, Mister Weasley."

Arthur looked a brief moment at both of them then belly-laughed. "Oh! Sorry to interrupt, I'll just leave these presents with you, and you two can get back to the holiday shagging."

Hermione blushed beet red and Harry didn't know whether to curse Arthur Weasley for showing up when he did or thank him for making his obvious excitement vanish in record time. At least he could stop hiding behind Hermione.

Arthur went to the Christmas tree to unload his armfuls of brightly wrapped boxes. Harry hurried over to help. "Thank you, Harry."

"Sure, Mister Weasley. Looks like Missus Weasley outdid herself this year," Harry remarked as he looked at all the gifts.

"Yes, well, with Molly's oldest boys married off and starting to have babies she's become a bit fanatical about the knitting, I'm afraid. Can't toss a cat in the Burrow without the poor thing landing on a knitting needle. Good thing we don't have cats. But on the plus side, Molly _is_ getting a good deal better at knitting. The boys will actually wear their jumpers out in public now."

Hermione came over to join them and looked askance at the tubular item Arthur had not put down on the floor with the others. "What's that?"

"Ah this… a little something courtesy of the ministry."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look, both equally baffled, neither with a clue what could be in the tube.

"Now, I hope you two like it, because I'll confess I had a hand in it. Last year at Liberation Day the Minster of Magic decided there ought to be a proper monument to the saviors of the wizarding world from the terror of Lord Voldemort."

"Oh _no_," Harry groaned, "Mister Weasley, if you tell me there's a statue of me somewhere I'm going to go spare."

Arthur chortled. "That was their first idea, a matching set of twenty-foot statues for the both of you in Diagon Alley. Oh, they were spectacularly detailed, too, I saw the miniaturized models. Fully animated, waving and brandishing wands like the swashbucklers of old… very heroic-looking."

Harry's shoulders sagged. Hermione just gave a sickly smile like one given a hideous shirt for Christmas by a batty old grandparent.

"But," Arthur continued, "I told them you'd go spare if they erected a statue in your likeness."

"Bloody right," Harry mumbled.

"So, what did the ministry do instead?" Hermione asked, looking just as relived as Harry to find out that the statue idea had been axed.

Arthur tapped the tube in his possession. "This. When I told them that neither of you would appreciate larger-than-life replica bird perches, they asked me, as I knew you and Hermione personally and well at that, what the pair of you _would_ like. They do want your approval, bad PR to have the hero and heroine of the wizarding world look down on the administration, though at times I'm sure it seems they're not all that horribly concerned about your opinions of the ministry, but I digress.

"So, I thought a long time about what the two of you might like. Since neither of you are much in the way of monument people, and that's what the ministry officials wanted, a big public-winning monument to Harry and Hermione Potter, it was hard to think of something fitting. _But_," Arthur held up the tube triumphantly, "I really think I've come through on this." He extended it to Hermione. "Go on, open it."

Hermione took the tube, glanced at Harry next to the tree, then shrugged and pried open one end of the hollow tube. She pulled from inside a thick rolled bit of paper, of a matching size with a wall poster.

Hermione set aside the tube and unrolled the paper. When she had it held out before her, she just looked at it at first, face inscrutable, then she looked up at Arthur and said, "You did a very good job, Mister Weasley. It's perfect."

"_Ah_! I knew you'd like it! Wait until I tell the fellows back at the office."

Harry stepped over to stand beside Hermione and look at the oversized paper that she held.

It was a wizard painting, he saw at once. It depicted a forest, or the edge of one, and in the background, through the trees, one could see the regal sight of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with its great towers rising toward the sky. In the foreground of the painting, two animals stared out of the piece of art straight at them. One was a black jaguar with striking blue eyes and a white lightning-bolt shaped scar over his right eye. The other was a maned lioness with dark brown eyes. As Harry and Hermione watched the artistic representations of Knight and Sagehunter, the two cats nuzzled each other, then Sagehunter yawned and displayed great canines. Knight moved a few steps away and laid down on the forest floor, the tip of his tail twitching.

"It is perfect," Harry said, surprised despite himself, and he glanced up at Ron and Ginny's father. "But how does this give the ministry the monument they were slavering for?"

"Well, that's a complimentary replica of the real painting. The original's twenty-feet tall, those ministry heads have some preoccupation with twenty-foot tall monuments, and on Liberation Day it will be hung in the main lobby of the Ministry of Magic. The plaque on the frame will say 'In commemoration of the heroes of the wizarding world, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, shown above as the animagi Knight and Sagehunter, with undying gratitude and eternal thanks from the world of magic, hung this fifth Liberation Day'. A bit overdone, I know, but they're public figures, they're ripe with cheese."

"Well, if there had to be a monument, this will do very nicely," Hermione said as she smiled at Sagehunter swatting playfully at Knight's tail.

Harry nodded. "I could do without the twenty-foot-tall bit, but this is _loads_ better than a statue."

"Let's hang it over the fireplace, Harry," Hermione suggested brightly, and Harry agreed readily.

They had to take off of the mantel the picture of James and Lily in the park dancing, as well as a muggle photograph of Jake and Miranda Granger, and a wizard photograph of the trio on their graduation day from Hogwarts. When those were safely out of the way, Harry and Arthur stretched, arms overhead and on their toes, to hang the painting. It magically straightened and stuck fast to the wall without the need for hammer or nails. The two cats came to acute attention at their new home and began to sniff around at the edges of the painting.

Hermione replaced the photos that had been taken down and stepped back to look at the finished effect. She stepped over to where Harry stood and hugged him around the waist. "It's great. We owe you big time for managing this in place of statues, Mister Weasley."

Arthur waved dismissively. "Nonsense, I'm just happy you like it.

"Well, I should be getting back to the Burrow before Molly wonders what's kept me. We're supposed to be going to George and Angelina's for dinner tonight, and if I keep Molly from Juliana and Geoffrey a minute more than necessary she'll have my hide. A bit of advice, you two, don't stand between a woman and her grandbabies, it's not pretty."

Harry smirked. "We'll keep that in mind."

"Happy Christmas, Harry and Hermione… I'll be out of here and you two can get back to what you were doing."

Hermione bit her lip and flushed pink. "Happy Christmas, Mister Weasley, and give our love to the family."

"You know I will," and with a wave Mister Weasley tossed a bit of floo powder into the flames and vanished through their emerald fireplace. Shortly afterward, it changed from green to yellow and orange and, were it not for the added presents under the tree and the new art on the wall, he may not have dropped by at all for how the room was just as it had been before his quick visit.

Harry shifted slightly and brought up his arms around Hermione from where he now stood behind her. They both watched their animagus likenesses frolicking in the painting. The artist had done an amazing job of capturing Knight and Sagehunter… or at least Harry knew the painter had done a wonderful job on Sagehunter, for it was a suitably eerie spitting image of the lioness being emulated, as all wizard paintings took great pains to be. It would suggest that the representation of Knight was equally spot-on if logic followed from Sagehunter's example.

"It's really very lovely, isn't it?" Hermione said softly as she brought up her hands to touch his arms as they crossed over her chest.

"Yeah, it is. Mister Weasley really saved our dignity by talking the ministry into this instead of statues."

Hermione almost laughed and leaned back barely in his embrace, her back pressing warmly and enticingly along his front.

"You know… we _were_ in the middle of something," Harry whispered hopefully in her ear.

Hermione smiled then, a beautiful smile that bloomed on her face and made her almost seem to glow. She turned in his arms and looked up lasciviously at him. "So we were… better luck in the bedroom, perhaps?"

Harry didn't need to be told twice. With a grin, he scooped her up in his arms. Hermione squealed and instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck. "_Harry_!" she cried breathlessly. But she didn't offer anything more in the way of protest as he carried her through their house toward the master bedroom. Not unless one wanted to call her nibbling on his ear a protest, which Harry wouldn't. It made him laugh and walk faster, hungry for her touch, blind with a burning need to make love to her.

And when he did, Harry Potter, Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort, husband to Hermione Potter (formerly Granger), was the happiest man on Earth.

END

_The beast to the beast is calling,  
And the mind bends down to wait:  
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,  
The man calls to his mate._


End file.
